Fee-tail

An estate tail; an estate of inheritance given to a man and the heirs of his body, or limited to certain classes of particular heirs. It corresponds to the feudwm talliatum of the feudal law, and the idea is believed to have been berrowed from the Roman law, where, by way of jidei commissa, lands might be entailed upon children and freedmen and their descendants, with restrictions as to alienation. 1 Washb. Real Prop. *66.

[L. ¥r.fee taille; L. Lat. feudum talliatum; from Fr. tailler, to cut.] A limited or restrained fee; hterally a cut fee. An estate of inheritance limited and restrained to some particidar heirs of the person to whom it is granted, in exclusioa of others. 2 Cra We Real Prop. 22, 28, §971. Galled tail^ that is, cut, according to some, because cut, clipped, or pared down (amputatur et rescinditur,) to certain heirs. Spelman, voc. Feodum. 8 Co. 27. CowelL And this accords with the meaning of feudum talliatum among the feudists; a mutilated or truncated inheritance, a fee curtailed of its proper quantity or extent According to others, because it is a particular estate cut out of the old conditional fee simple, by the operation of the statute de donis, Crabb's Mist. 111. 2 BL Com. 112. 1 Steph, Com. 228. 2 Crabb's Heal Prop. 21—23, §§ 970, 971. As to fees tail in American law, see 4 Kent's Com, 14 — 19« and notes.