Meanings
- obsoleteuncountableLending money at interest; usury.
True love and friendship hath respect onely to his friends necessitie, without merchandize or feneration.
1631, Richard Barckley, The felicitie of man, page 6382 more examples
Plutarch hath also made an expresse Treatise vpon the same, where he prooueth that by Nature we ought not to vse feneration and vsurie[…]
1591, Thomas Lodge, Catharos. Diogenes in his singularitie[…]and what vices therein it [sc. the hare] figured; that is, not only pusillanimity and timidity from its temper, feneration or usury from its fecundity and superfetation, but from this mixture of sexes, unnaturall venery and degenerous effemination.
1650, Thomas Browne, “Of Hares”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 120
Origin
- Latinfaenerationem
- Englishfeneration
From Latin faenerationem, from faenerare.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
feneration. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/feneration
“feneration.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/feneration. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “feneration,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/feneration.
Source: feneration on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.