The Collaborative Dictionary

Yard \Yard\, n. [OE. yard, yerd, AS. geard; akin to OFries. garda garden, OS. gardo garden, gard yard, D. gaard garden, G. garten, OHG. garto garden, gari inclosure, Icel. gar[eth]r yard, house, Sw. g[*a]rd, Dan. gaard, Goth. gards a house, garda sheepfold, L. hortus garden, Gr. cho`rtos an inclosure. Cf. Court, Garden, Garth, Horticulture, Orchard.] [1913 Webster]

An inclosure; usually, a small inclosed place in front of, or around, a house or barn; as, a courtyard; a cowyard; a barnyard. [1913 Webster] A yard . . . inclosed all about with sticks In which she had a cock, hight chanticleer. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]

An inclosure within which any work or business is carried on; as, a dockyard; a shipyard. [1913 Webster] Liberty of the yard, a liberty, granted to persons imprisoned for debt, of walking in the yard, or within any other limits prescribed by law, on their giving bond not to go beyond those limits. Prison yard, an inclosure about a prison, or attached to it. Yard grass (Bot.), a low-growing grass (Eleusine Indica) having digitate spikes. It is common in dooryards, and like places, especially in the Southern United States. Called also crab grass. Yard of land. See Yardland. [1913 Webster]

Yard \Yard\, n. [OE. yerd, AS. gierd, gyrd, a rod, stick, a measure, a yard; akin to OFries. ierde, OS. gerda, D. garde, G. gerte, OHG. gartia, gerta, gart, Icel. gaddr a goad, sting, Goth. gazds, and probably to L. hasta a spear. Cf. Gad, n., Gird, n., Gride, v. i., Hastate.]

A rod; a stick; a staff. [Obs.] --P. Plowman. [1913 Webster] If men smote it with a yerde. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]

A branch; a twig. [Obs.] [1913 Webster] The bitter frosts with the sleet and rain Destroyed hath the green in every yerd. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]

A long piece of timber, as a rafter, etc. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]

A measure of length, equaling three feet, or thirty-six inches, being the standard of English and American measure. [1913 Webster]

The penis. [1913 Webster]

(Naut.) A long piece of timber, nearly cylindrical, tapering toward the ends, and designed to support and extend a square sail. A yard is usually hung by the center to the mast. See Illust. of Ship. [1913 Webster]

(Zool.) A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc. [Webster 1913 Suppl.] Golden Yard, or Yard and Ell (Astron.), a popular name of the three stars in the belt of Orion. Under yard [i. e., under the rod], under contract. [Obs.] --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]

Yard \Yard\, v. t. To confine (cattle) to the yard; to shut up, or keep, in a yard; as, to yard cows. [1913 Webster]

Word Net

yard

1 a unit of length equal to 3 feet; defined as 91.44 centimeters; originally taken to be the average length of a stride [syn: pace]

2 the enclosed land around a house or other building; "it was a small house with almost no yard" [syn: grounds, curtilage]

3 a tract of land enclosed for particular activities (sometimes paved and usually associated with buildings); "they opened a repair yard on the edge of town"

4 an area having a network of railway tracks and sidings for storage and maintenance of cars and engines [syn: railway yard]

5 an enclosure for animals (as chicken or livestock)

6 a unit of volume (as for sand or gravel) [syn: cubic yard]

7 a long horizontal spar tapered at the end and used to support and spread a square sail or lateen

8 the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100 [syn: thousand, one thousand, 1000, M, K, chiliad, G, grand, thou]

Moby Thesaurus

C, C-note, G, G-note, M, arena, armory, arsenal, assembly line, assembly plant, atomic energy plant, beleaguer, beset, besiege, bindery, blockade, boatyard, boilery, bookbindery, bound, box in, brewery, brickyard, buck, cage, cannery, cartwheel, cent, century, chamber, chiliad, chiliagon, chiliahedron, chiliarch, chiliarchia, cincture, close, close in, compass, confine, contain, container, coop, coop in, coop up, copper, cordon, cordon off, corral, court, courtyard, creamery, curtilage, dairy, defense plant, delimited field, dime, distillery, dockyard, dollar, dollar bill, encircle, enclave, enclose, enclosure, encompass, enshrine, factory, factory belt, factory district, feeder plant, fence in, field, fifty cents, fin, fish, five cents, five hundred dollars, five-dollar bill, five-hundred-dollar bill, five-spot, fiver, flour mill, fold, four bits, frogskin, grand, ground, half G, half a C, half dollar, half grand, hedge in, hem in, house in, hundred-dollar bill, impound, imprison, incarcerate, include, industrial park, industrial zone, iron man, jail, kennel, kilo, kilocycle, kilogram, kilohertz, kiloliter, kilometer, lakh, leaguer, list, main plant, manufactory, manufacturing plant, manufacturing quarter, mew, mew up, mill, millennium, millepede, milligram, milliliter, mint, munitions plant, myriad, nickel, oil refinery, one hundred thousand, packing house, pale, paling, park, pen, pen in, penny, plant, pocket, pottery, power plant, production line, push-button plant, quad, quadrangle, quarantine, quarter, rail in, red cent, refinery, sawbuck, sawmill, shipyard, shrine, shut in, shut up, silver dollar, skin, smacker, square, stable, subassembly plant, sugar refinery, surround, tannery, ten cents, ten thousand, ten-spot, tenner, theater, thou, thousand, thousand dollars, thousand-dollar bill, toft, twenty-dollar bill, twenty-five cents, two bits, two-dollar bill, two-spot, wall in, winery, wrap, yard up, yards

English

Pronunciation

• (UK): /jɑːd/, /jA:d
• (US): , /jɑːrd/, /jA:rd

Etymology 1

ġeard, from Germanic *garda-, from Indo-European *gher- ‘enclosure’. Cognate with Dutch gaard, German Garten, Swedish gård. The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin hortus, ‘garden’, Russian город, ‘town’. Compare garden.

Noun

1. A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.
2. An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.
3. (Jamaican) One’s house or home.

Translations