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yard

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Yard

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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 Dutch gaard, obsolete German Gart, German Garten, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål gård, Norwegian Nynorsk gard, Lithuanian gardas (“pen, enclosure”), Russian го́род (górod, “town”), Serbo-Croatian and Slovene grad ("town"), Albanian gardh (“fence”), Romanian gard, Avestan 𐬔𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬛𐬵𐬀 (gərədha, “dev's cave”), Sanskrit गृह (gṛha)), Medieval Latin gardinus, jardinus. Doublet of garden, garth, and gord.

Noun

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yard (plural yards)

  1. A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.
  2. (US, Canada, Australia) The property surrounding one's house, typically dominated by one's lawn.
    Synonym: (UK) garden
  3. An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.
    • 1931, Francis Beeding, “2/2”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps‎[1]:
      A little further on, to the right, was a large garage, where the charabancs stood, half in and half out of the yard.
    • 1951 February, “Notes and News: Lynton & Barnstaple Remains”, in Railway Magazine, page 136:
      Pilton Yard, the Lynton & Barnstaple headquarters, has been taken over by a fur trading firm, and would-be trespassers to the old engine-shed are turned back by the pungent odour of heaps of carcases.
  4. A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
  5. (Jamaica, MLE) One’s house or home.
    • 2020 December 15, “We Paid (Remix)”, performed by #GS28 Goose, 0:15–0:21:
      Man’s devilish cunt, tell me nutting about friends, that’s dead
      Cuz I run up in yards,
      No vest, tryna ching man’s chest
      And leave him dead
Hyponyms
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Derived terms
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See also: Yard
Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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yard (third-person singular simple present yards, present participle yarding, simple past and past participle yarded)

  1. (transitive) To confine to a yard.
    • 1893, Elijah Kellogg, Good old times, or, Grandfather's struggles for a homestead:
      As they reached the door, Bose, having yarded the cows, was stealing around the corner of the pig-sty, and making for the woods.
    • 1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 14:
      The sheep were straggling in a manner that meant walking work to round them, and he supposed he would have to yard them tonight, if she didn't liven up.

Etymology 2

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From Middle English ȝerde, yerd, ȝerd, from Old English ġierd (“branch; rod, staff; measuring stick; yardland”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaʀd, from Proto-Germanic *gazdaz. Cognate with Dutch gard (“twig”), German Gerte and probably related to Latin hasta (“spear”).[1]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Noun

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yard (plural yards or (UK colloquial) yard)

  1. A unit of length equal to 3 feet in the US customary and British imperial systems of measurement, equal to precisely 0.9144 m since 1959 (US) or 1963 (UK).
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ […].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.
    1. (informal) Ellipsis of square yard.. a unit of area (common with textiles)
    2. (informal) Ellipsis of cubic yard.. a unit of volume (common in mining and earthmoving)
  2. Units of similar composition or length in other systems.
  4. (nautical) Any spar carried aloft.
    1. (nautical) A long tapered timber hung on a mast to which is bent a sail, and may be further qualified as a square, lateen, or lug yard. The first is hung at right angles to the mast, the latter two hang obliquely.
  5. (obsolete) A branch, twig, or shoot.
  6. (obsolete) A staff, rod, or stick.
  7. (obsolete, medicine) A penis.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
      there were some people found who tooke pleasure to unhood the end of their yard, and to cut off the fore-skinne after the manner of the Mahometans and Jewes […].
    • 1774, James Cook, The Journals, Second Voyage, 23 July:
      [T]he testicles are quite exposed, but they wrap a piece of cloth or leafe round the yard which they tye up to the belly to a cord or bandage which they wear round the waist just under the short ribbs and over the belly and so tight that it was a wonder to us how they could endure it.
  8. (US, slang, uncommon) 100 dollars.
  9. (obsolete) The yardland, an obsolete English unit of land roughly understood as 30 acres.
    • a. 1634, W. Noye, The Complete Lawyer, section 57:
      You must note, that two Fardells of Land make a Nooke of Land, and two Nookes make halfe a Yard of Land.
  10. (obsolete) The rod, a surveying unit of (once) 15 or (now) 16+1⁄2 feet.
  11. (obsolete) The rood, area bound by a square rod, 1⁄4 acre.
Synonyms
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  • (arm length): See ell
  • ($100): See hundred
  • (surveying measure): See rod
  • (large unit of area): See virgate
  • (small unit of area): See rood
Hypernyms
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Hyponyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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yard (third-person singular simple present yards, present participle yarding, simple past and past participle yarded)

  1. (intransitive, humorous) To move a yard at a time, as opposed to inching along.
    • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 62:
      He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way down it, which was true.

Etymology 3

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Clipping of milliard.

Noun

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yard (plural yards)

  1. (finance) 109, A short scale billion; a long scale thousand millions or milliard.
    I need to hedge a yard of yen.

References

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  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "yard, n.2". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1921.

Anagrams

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Czech

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Noun

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yard m inan

  1. yard (unit of length)

Declension

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Declension of yard (hard masculine inanimate)
singular plural
nominative yard yardy
genitive yardu yardů
dative yardu yardům
accusative yard yardy
vocative yarde yardy
locative yardu yardech
instrumental yardem yardy

Further reading

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  • “yard”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
  • “yard”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

French

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English yard.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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yard m (plural yards)

  1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

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Italian

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English yard.

Noun

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yard f (plural yards)

  1. yard (unit of length)
    Synonym: iarda

Further reading

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  • yard in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Jamaican Creole

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From English yard.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /jɑːd/, /jɔːd/
  • Hyphenation: yard

Noun

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yard (Cassidy/JLU orthography spelling yaad)

  1. home
    Unnu love people yard too much.
    Y'all love spending time in other people's homes too much.
    Nuh weh nuh nice like yard.
    There's no place like home.
    • 1999, Kamala Kempadoo, Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean (in English), →ISBN, page 138:
      “You say use a condom and dem say, "Mi naah use condom, mi have mi wife a mi yard and mi wife clean and me clean."”
      You say use a condom and they say, "I'm not going to use a condom. My wife's at home and my wife and I are both clean."

Noun

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yard (plural yard dem, quantified yard)

  1. yard

Further reading

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Middle English

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Noun

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yard

  1. Alternative form of yerd

Romanian

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English yard.

Noun

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yard m (plural yarzi)

  1. yard

Declension

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singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative yard yardul yarzi yarzii
genitive-dative yard yardului yarzi yarzilor
vocative yardule yarzilor
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