yard

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

English

Alternative forms

• yaird (obsolete, Scotland)
• yeard (archaic)
• yerd (obsolete)
• yod (pronunciation spelling)

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”), 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, 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.

Noun

yard (plural yards)

1. A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.
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.
4. A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
5. (Jamaica, MLE) One’s house or home.

Derived terms

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.

Etymology 2

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”).

Noun

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).
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.
   • 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, 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

Verb

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.

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 inan

1. yard (unit of length)

Declension

Further reading

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

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English yard.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jaʁd/

Noun

yard m (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

• “yard”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English yard.

Noun

yard f (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

   Synonym: iarda

Further reading

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

Jamaican Creole

Alternative forms

• yaad, yawd

Etymology

From English yard.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

yard

1. home

Noun

yard (plural yard dem or yards dem, quantified yard)

1. yard

Further reading

• Richard Allsopp, editor, Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 1996 (2003 printing), →ISBN, page 617

Middle English

Noun

yard

1. Alternative form of yerd

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English yard.

Noun

yard m (plural yarzi)

1. yard

Declension