turbary

English

WOTD – 5 December 2024

Inherited from Middle English turbarie (“place where peat is dug, peat bog; substance obtained from such a place, peat”),^[1] from Anglo-Norman turbarie, turberie, and Old French torberie, tourbarie, turbarie, from Medieval Latin turbāria, from turba (“turf”) (whence Old French tourbe)^[2]^[3] + Latin -āria (suffix forming abstract nouns). Turba is derived from Proto-West Germanic *turb (“peat; turf”); from Proto-Germanic *turbz (“peat; turf”), from Proto-Indo-European *derbʰ- (“grass; tuft”). Doublet of turf.

turbary (countable and uncountable, plural turbaries) (soil science)

(uncountable) Peatland from which peat or turf may be cut for fuel; (countable) a piece of such land; a peat bog.
- 1970, Heðin Brú [pseudonym; Hans Jacob Jacobsen], chapter 10, in John F. West, transl., The Old Man and His Sons, London: Saqi, published 2013, →ISBN:
  But remember this, it doesn't pay to set yourself against me, because I own both the infield and the turbary in the village, and without my leave, you'll get neither milk nor fuel.
(uncountable, by extension)
1. (law) In full common of turbary: the right to cut peat or turf from peatland on a common or another person's land.
  Hypernym: profit à prendre
  - 1766, William Blackstone, “Of Incorporeal Hereditaments”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book II (Of the Rights of Things), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 34:
    Common of piſcary is a liberty of fiſhing in another man's waters; as common of turbary is a liberty of digging turf upon another's ground. […] All theſe bear a reſemblance to common of paſture in many reſpects; thought in one point they go much farther: common of paſture being only a right of feeding on the herbage and veſture of the ſoil, which renews annually; but common of turbary, and the reſt, are a right of carrying away the very ſoil itſelf.
2. (obsolete) Material extracted from peatland; peat.

peatland from which peat or turf may be cut for fuel; piece of such land

right to cut peat or turf from peatland on a common or another person’s land