farm
Pluralfarms
Pluralfarms
- 1An area of land, with its buildings, used for growing crops, raising livestock, and related work, whether worked by its owner or by a tenant.
The family has owned a dairy farm in Wisconsin for four generations.
Many farms in the region switched from tobacco to soybeans over the last decade.
UsagePeople live and work on a farm (not
incorrect: in a farm). A word before it often names the produce: a dairy farm. - 2To work as a farmer; to use land for growing crops or raising animals, or to grow or raise a particular crop or animal commercially.
He farms full-time now, after years of splitting his hours with a factory job.
Families who farm in the high desert depend heavily on irrigation.
UsageOften used alone: he farms full-time. Add in for the place: they have farmed in this valley for years.
Note
The verb's ancestor was a word of business, not of soil: Anglo-Norman fermer meant 'to let out for a fixed payment, lease, rent'. The leasing meaning lives on in the old 'let out' verb and in farm out.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The agricultural verb descends through Middle English fermen from Anglo-Norman fermer, with commercial leasing meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- 3A site or group of many similar machines or installations working together for one purpose, such as generating power or processing data.
A solar farm now covers the field where the drive-in theater once stood.
The broadcaster maintains an antenna farm on the ridge above the city.
UsageCommon ones: wind farm, solar farm, server farm, antenna farm.
Similararray
Note
Machines take the place of fields here. The word names a site packed with repeated units, and it nearly always arrives with a noun in front naming them: wind farm, solar farm, fuel farm, antenna farm. Suzanne Goldenberg's 2014 report on Apple's solar farm shows the pattern in ordinary journalism.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Suzanne Goldenberg published a report about Apple's solar farm in 2014. theguardian.com
- 4In games and online, to repeat an action many times to collect items, points, wins, or likes, sometimes in a way seen as cheating.
Farming the ice dungeon for rare crafting materials took her all weekend.
Veteran players farm world bosses each week for a chance at legendary gear.
UsageThe object can name the reward, enemy, or location: farm gold, farm a boss, farm a dungeon.
Similargrind
Note
Gamers use the verb with the harvest as its object. Gold farming is one case, and Doug Freyburger's 2004 post 'Pudding Farming Requires Care' describes splitting black puddings in NetHack for what they yield. Where grinding names the repetitive slog, farming aims it at a specific drop. Robert Alan Brookey's Hollywood Gamers (2010) calls gold farming controversial and a breach of licensing agreements.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Doug Freyburger's 2004 Usenet post 'Pudding Farming Requires Care' describes splitting black puddings in NetHack for their benefits. en.wiktionary.org
- Robert Alan Brookey wrote Hollywood Gamers, published in 2010. iupress.org
- Hollywood Gamers describes gold farming as controversial and as violating licensing agreements. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 5Historical: to let out land, a business, or the collection of revenue to someone else in return for rent, a fixed payment, or a share of the proceeds.
Rather than collect customs duties itself, the crown farmed them to private syndicates.
Medieval rulers would often farm their revenues to financiers in return for a share of the proceeds.
Note
Revenue was the classic thing handed over this way, and to farm the taxes is the set phrase. Edmund Burke in 1783 extended it to people, accusing the East-India Company of having 'contrived to farm their subjects' to a Nabob it called a tyrant. The phrasal farm out means the same. The dialect farm out, meaning cleaning out, is a different word.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 7 facts
- Revenue was a characteristic subject of farming arrangements. en.wikipedia.org
- 'To farm the taxes' is an attested expression for this meaning. en.wiktionary.org
- Edmund Burke used this extension in a speech delivered in 1783. upload.wikimedia.org
- Burke accused the Company of farming its subjects to a Nabob whom it described as a tyrant; 'contrived' is attested in the opened 1826 edition. upload.wikimedia.org
- 'Farm out' also expresses the historical sense of handing something over for a return. en.wiktionary.org
- Dialectal 'farm out' means to clean or empty out and belongs to a separate etymology. en.wiktionary.org
- The dialectal phrasal verb specifically has the stated cleaning meaning. en.wiktionary.org
- 6To take land, property, or a right on lease at a fixed rent or rate.
Note
This is the other side of letting out for rent: the subject is the one who takes the lease, such as a tenant holding an estate or a contractor paying a fixed sum for the right to collect tolls. A related use, farming babies, meant taking in infants for a set fee, as in the baby farm. The meaning now survives only in historical writing.
- 7Food or provisions; also, a meal, especially a feast.
Note
One of the oldest strands of the word, and long out of use. Middle English ferme could mean a meal or a feast, and the related Old English verb feormian, "to feed, sustain", shows the same idea of supplying food. It survives only in older texts. In this sense, read it as plain food or provisions, rather than land. It is the root of the rent paid in kind.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- The food meaning belongs to an early strand of the word, already present in Old English. en.wiktionary.org
- Middle English ferme could mean a meal or feast. en.wiktionary.org
- The related Old English verb feormian meant to feed or sustain. en.wiktionary.org
- Older texts also use ferme for leased or rented land. The food interpretation applies only when the context establishes this particular sense. en.wiktionary.org
- The food or provisions strand underlies the meaning of rent paid in kind. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A house or establishment where infants were taken in and looked after in return for payment; a baby farm.
- 9A lease at a fixed rent, especially the right granted to a private contractor to collect a tax or public revenue in return for a fixed payment.
The first farm of postal income was made in 1672.
1885, Edwards in Encycl. Brit. XIX. 580 - 10Historical: a fixed yearly payment, in money or goods, rendered as rent or accepted in place of taxes due.
He [the Sheriff] paid into the Exchequer the fixed yearly sum which formed the farm of the shire.
1876, E. A. Freeman, Hist. Norman Conquest V. xxiv. 439 - 11The body of revenue farmers; the group of men who held contracts to collect public taxes in return for fixed payments.
- 12To cleanse or clean out; to put in order; to empty out.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Inherited from Middle English ferme, farme ("rent, revenue, produce"), influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme ("rent, lease, farm") and from Medieval Latin ferma, firma. There is debate over whether the Latin term came from Old English feorm ("rent, provision, feast"), from Proto-Germanic roots meaning "means of living," or from Latin firmus ("solid, secure"), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to hold."
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Farm is inherited from Middle English ferme, farme, with the stated meanings, influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme and derived through Medieval Latin ferma, firma. en.wiktionary.org
- The Medieval Latin term has competing proposed origins in Old English feorm ('rent, provision, feast') and Latin firmus ('solid, secure'). en.wiktionary.org
- The proposed Old English ancestry leads back to Proto-Germanic forms meaning 'means of living'. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin firmus derives ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to hold'. en.wiktionary.org
Anglo-Norman fermer, meaning to lease, rent, or let out for a fixed payment, entered Middle English as fermen. The verb and the noun farm ultimately share a source, possibly Old English. Compare Old English feormian, meaning to feed or supply with food.