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, 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.

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.

Hyponyms

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.
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