How to Use fiefdom in a Sentence

fiefdom

noun
  • What the week sketched instead is a near-term map of fiefdoms.
    — Alexander Puutio, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026
  • There were too many divisions, too many fiefdoms.
    — CBS News, 8 Mar. 2026
  • No less absurd is the notion of its having been the fiefdom of a lad.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2024
  • Then there are the lesser houses, the lower fiefdoms squabbling over the crumbs that fall from the big kids’ table.
    — Joe Wilkins, Futurism, 14 May 2026
  • It was set so far after the different kingdoms, fiefdoms and ruling factions have grown.
    — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 24 Sep. 2025
  • That two fiefdoms are in play—Rovel and Ledu—adds to the sense of glamorous disarray.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 20 Sep. 2024
  • Set in green rolling hills, the castle comes with a portion of the village, which bears the same name and was once part of its fiefdom, lying at its feet.
    — Silvia Marchetti, CNN, 14 Dec. 2022
  • Would make a lovely fiefdom for Rubio or another attendant lord to rule in his spare time.
    — Alexandra Petri, The Atlantic, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Carrell has never been better, at least outside his Scranton fiefdom.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Joe is lording over his fiefdom from his den, designed in perfect Don Corleone-chic decor, when his fax machine buzzes to life.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 2026
  • The days of Belichick running an unfettered, football fiefdom with little oversight need to be over.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Elsewhere, though, the rules that govern this furry fiefdom defy easy comprehension.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2026
  • But Obama also commands his media fiefdom, with his wife as partner, in a way that no other ex-president has.
    — Chron, 10 Aug. 2021
  • Neither spacecraft was equipped with the right instruments to study the boundary between our star’s planetary fiefdom and the rest of the universe.
    — Daniel Oberhaus, Wired, 20 Nov. 2020
  • So too is competition between streaming platforms that see Korea as their fiefdom.
    — Patrick Frater, Variety, 21 Dec. 2022
  • For decades, the NYPD has been the most powerful fiefdom in city government.
    — Eric Umansky, ProPublica, 11 June 2021
  • Maduro secures allies in the military by distributing control over such lawless fiefdoms.
    — Francisco Rodríguez, Foreign Affairs, 9 Oct. 2020
  • The position became seen by some as a fiefdom within the Port, ripe for potential corruption.
    — Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News, 5 Feb. 2026
  • The architects’ challenge was to shape a tower that was at once muscled and airy, a private fiefdom that appears invitingly public.
    — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 12 Nov. 2025
  • But in truth every major artist’s output is a fiefdom unto itself, with august gatekeepers and unwritten rules.
    — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2022
  • RedBird was hashing out an overarching sports and media fiefdom for Iger to oversee.
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 21 Nov. 2022
  • For 32 years used his position to raise money illegally, uh, and created a fiefdom there.
    — Laura Johnston, cleveland, 22 Mar. 2022
  • Thomas’s fiefdom seems similar to that of many real-life dance companies in that power is concentrated in a man with few checks on his behavior.
    — Faith Hill, The Atlantic, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Both parties are run as fiefdoms of dynastic families and have long been fixtures in Pakistani politics.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 11 Feb. 2024
  • After returning from his mission in the desert, the magistrate has a precipitous fall, and his sometime fiefdom starts to decline along with him.
    — Lidija Haas, The New Republic, 7 Aug. 2020
  • That way, Mexico might have a proper democracy, instead of a personal or party fiefdom.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 1 Mar. 2023
  • To be successful, co-leaders need an ongoing process to keep from settling into separate fiefdoms that destroy value in the business.
    — Anand Joshi, Harvard Business Review, 24 July 2024
  • Hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded in the crossfire between feuding factions, each eager to expand and consolidate their fiefdoms.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2023
  • Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest novel takes place in Lapvona, a medieval fiefdom ruled over by a vain and gluttonous lord, Villiam.
    — The Atlantic, 16 May 2022
  • All of these have been kind of local fiefdoms, and all of a sudden digital money breaks through all of the borders between our countries, and riding on top of the internet which connects all people.
    — Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune Crypto, 30 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fiefdom.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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