yard

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The area of ground around a house, often with grass.

   It was a small house with almost no yard.

2. 2
   noun

   A unit of length equal to three feet, about 0.91 metres.

   The fabric was sold by the yard.

3. 3
   noun

   An enclosed outdoor area used for a particular kind of work.

   They opened a repair yard on the edge of town.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Yard has two distinct Old English origins. The unit of length and the nautical spar descend from gerd, “twig, stick, rod”; the measure became standardized at three feet in the later medieval period. Yard meaning enclosed ground comes from Old English geard, “building, home, enclosure,” and is related to garden, orchard, and Russian gorod, “town.”

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰos Proto-Germanic *gardaz Proto-West Germanic *gard Old English ġeard Middle English yerd English yard From Middle English yerd, yard, ȝerd, ȝeard, from Old English ġeard (“yard, garden, fence, enclosure”), from Proto-West Germanic *gard, from Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“enclosure, yard”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰos, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- (“to enclose”). See also North Frisian guard, Guart (“garden, yard”), Dutch gaard, gaarde (“garden, yard”), German Garten (“garden, yard”), Danish…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary