glebe

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   land belonging to a parish church or ecclesiastical benefice and providing income for its clergy

   The rector leased part of the glebe to a neighboring farmer.

2. 2
   noun

   archaic or literary: soil, land, or a cultivated field

   Years of careful drainage turned the heavy glebe into productive farmland.

From Middle English and Old French glebe, from Latin gleba ('clod, lump of earth; land'). The ecclesiastical sense developed from land assigned to support a church living.

Topics