forfe

Forfe is an obsolete or variant spelling of the verb forfeit, meaning to lose or be deprived of something as a penalty for wrongdoing, breach of contract, or failure to meet a condition. The form appears chiefly in English texts from the late Middle Ages through the early modern period and is largely confined to historic or literary contexts.

Etymologically, forfe derives from the Old French forfait, itself a compound of for‑ (“away, off”) and fait (“done, made”), tracing back to Latin facere (“to make”). The spelling with –e at the end follows older orthographic conventions that did not standardise the -it ending until the 18th century. By the time of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (1755), “forfeit” was established as the regular form, and “forfe” fell out of general usage.

In legal history, forfeiture referred to the compulsory surrender of property or rights to the Crown or another authority. Documents from the reign of Henry VIII, for example, record royal decrees that “the lands shall be forfe” to the Crown if a tenant failed to render due service. The variant spelling is preserved in some early statutes and charters, where it reflects the scribe’s phonetic rendering rather than a distinct legal concept.

Modern scholarship on historical English spelling notes “forfe” as an illustrative case of orthographic variation prior to standardisation. Researchers of medieval law and literature encounter the form when transcribing hand‑written manuscripts, and editors often retain it to preserve the original text’s authenticity.

In contemporary usage, “forfe” is considered archaic; dictionaries list it only as a historical variant of “forfeit.” The term remains of interest chiefly to philologists, legal historians, and scholars of early modern English.