yard

English Online Dictionary. What means yard‎? What does yard mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /jɑːd/
• (General American) enPR: yärd, IPA^(key): /jɑɹd/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

Etymology 1

From Middle English yerd, yard, ȝerd, ȝeard, from Old English ġeard (“yard, garden, fence, enclosure, enclosed place, court, residence, dwelling, home, region, land; hedge”), from Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“enclosure, yard”) (compare Dutch gaard, obsolete German Gart, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål gård, Norwegian Nynorsk gard), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰos, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- (“to enclose”) (Lithuanian gardas (“pen, enclosure”), Russian го́род (górod, “town”), Albanian gardh (“fence”), Romanian gard, Avestan 𐬔𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬛𐬵𐬀‎ (gərədha, “dev's cave”), Sanskrit गृह (gṛha)), Medieval Latin gardinus, Medieval Latin jardinus.

Noun

yard (plural yards)

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. A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
4. (Jamaican) One’s house or home.

Derived terms

See also Yard

Translations

Verb

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.

Etymology 2

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

Noun

yard (plural yards)

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).
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.
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, 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

• (arm length): See ell
• ($100): See hundred
• (surveying measure): See rod
• (large unit of area): See virgate
• (small unit of area): See rood

Hypernyms

• (unit of area): See virgate

Hyponyms

• (unit of area): See virgate

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

Clipping of milliard.

Noun

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

Anagrams

• Dray, Dyar, Rady, adry, dray

---

Czech

Noun

yard m

1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

• yard in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• yard in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

---

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jaʁd/

Noun

yard m (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

• “yard” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

---

Italian

Noun

yard f (plural yard)

1. yard (unit of length)

Synonyms

• iarda

---

Middle English

Noun

yard

1. Alternative form of yerd