fine

fine 1 In criminal law, sum of money exacted by a lawful tribunal as punishment for a crime. In the case of misdemeanors and minor infractions of the law, convicted persons ordinarily have the alternative of paying a fine or undergoing a short term of imprisonment. This practice has been condemned at times as potentially exposing the poor to more onerous punishment than the well-to-do. Fines are also sometimes imposed in convictions for felony, usually in addition to a prison sentence. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibits the imposition of excessive fines, but the Supreme Court has never found that any statutory fine violated that provision. 2 In the law of the transfer of land, a legal fiction for permitting the sale of lands in entail . The fine, first worked out in the 15th cent., is in the form of a suit to determine the ownership of land. The buyer sues the seller, who accedes to the buyer's claim that his right of ownership is superior. The judgment of the court to this effect constitutes the buyer's title. The fine was formerly widely used in England and the United States, but simplified methods of defeating the entail have made it obsolete. 3 In feudal law, payment to the lord for rights relating to tenancy, e.g., for the privilege of releasing to another or acquiring for oneself the tenancy of land.

fine as fine as fivepence archaic expression meaning very fine and neat. Recorded from the mid 16th century, the phrase probably derives from the use of alliteration for emphasis
(compare as fit as a fiddle).fine feathers make fine birds beautiful clothes confer beauty or style on the wearer. The saying is recorded in the late 16th century in English, but is found earlier in 16th-century French.
fine words butter no parsnips nothing is ever achieved by fine words alone (butter was the traditional garnish for parsips). The saying is recorded from the mid 17th century.

see also chance would be a fine thing, rain before seven, fine before eleven.