farm

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   workplace consisting of farm buildings and cultivated land as a unit

   it takes several people to work the farm

2. 2
   verb

   be a farmer

   work as a farmer

3. 3
   noun

   A location used for an industrial purpose, having many similar structures.

   antenna farm; fuel farm; solar farm; wind farm

4. 4
   noun

   A group of coordinated servers.

   a render farm

5. 5
   noun

   A fixed yearly amount (food, provisions, money, etc.) payable as rent or tax.

   If a man be bounden unto 1.s. in 100.l.£ to grant unto him the rent and farme of such a Mill.

6. 6
   noun

   A fixed yearly sum accepted from a person as a composition for taxes or other moneys which he is empowered to collect; also, a fixed charge imposed on a town, county, etc., in respect of a tax or taxes to be collected within its limits.

   He [the Sheriff] paid into the Exchequer the fixed yearly sum which formed the farm of the shire.

7. 7
   noun

   The letting-out of public revenue to a ‘farmer’; the privilege of farming a tax or taxes.

   The first farm of postal income was made in 1672.

8. 8
   noun

   The body of farmers of public revenues.

   They despair of a suppression of the Farm.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English ferme, farme (“rent, revenue, produce, factor, stewardship, meal, feast”), influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme (“rent, lease, farm”), from Medieval Latin ferma, firma. There is debate as to whether Medieval Latin acquired this term from Old English feorm (“rent, provision, supplies, feast”), from Proto-Germanic *fermō, *firhuma- (“means of living, subsistence”), from Proto-Germanic *ferhwō (“life force, body, being”), from Proto-Indo-European *perkʷ- (“life, force, strength, tree”); or from Latin firmus (“solid, secure”), from Proto-Italic *fermos, from Proto-Indo-Eu…