yard

Less common meanings

6. 6
   square measurenouncolloquialabbreviationellipsis

   Short for square yard: a unit of area, about 0.84 square meters, used especially when selling carpet and flooring.

   The new carpet for the den costs thirty dollars a yard, including installation.

   We ordered forty yards of carpet to cover the whole upstairs.

   Note

   In the carpet and flooring trade, context does the work the word square would otherwise do. There a yard is understood as a square yard, a three-by-three-foot area of nine square feet, not a running length. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • A square yard is the area of a square measuring three feet on each side. en.wikipedia.org
   • One square yard equals nine square feet. aphis.usda.gov
7. 7
   homenoundialectalJamaicaMulticultural London Englishcountable

   A person's house or home.

   She invited the whole crew back to her yard for dinner.

   Come round my yard later and we can play video games.

   Similarhome, place, house

   Note

   Jamaican English and Multicultural London English share this use, in which yard means the home itself rather than the ground around it. In #GS28 Goose's "We Paid (Remix)" (2020), the plural describes bursting into people's houses.

8. 8
   nounslangUScountable

   One hundred, especially one hundred dollars or a hundred units of another currency.

   He won a couple of yards at the poker table.

   She slipped the valet a yard to keep quiet.

   Similarhundred

   Note

   American slang, and uncommon even there: a yard is a hundred-dollar sum, usually named casually as winnings, a debt or a payoff. Keep it apart from the trading-floor billion, a clipping of milliard that sounds the same. The scale of the conversation tells them apart: a currency desk hedging a yard means a billion.

9. 9
   local lengthnouncountable

   A unit in another measurement system that is similar in makeup or length to the standard yard.

   In many older systems, the local yard was a little longer or shorter than ours.

   Old Texas deeds measure land in varas, a Spanish yard a few inches shorter than the English one.

10. 10
    sail polenouncountable

    A long spar fixed across a mast of a sailing ship, from which a sail is hung; also, loosely, any spar carried aloft on a mast.

    The crew hauled the mainsail up to the yard before the wind picked up.

    During the storm, two sailors climbed out along the yard to tie down the torn sail.

    Note

    Sailors bend a sail to a yard: bend is the rigging verb for fastening canvas to a spar. The qualifier tells you how the yard hangs. A square yard hangs at right angles to the mast. Lateen and lug yards both hang obliquely, so naming the yard also names the kind of rig. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • To bend a sail to a yard means to fasten it to the yard. gutenberg.org
    • The qualifiers square, lateen and lug identify yard arrangements: square yards hang at right angles to the mast; lateen and lug yards hang obliquely. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    deer winter areanouncountable

    An area where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, and similar needs.

    Wildlife officers mapped the deer yards where herds shelter from deep winter snow.

    A traditional deer yard can shelter dozens of animals through harsh months.

12. 12
    shut animals inverbtransitive

    To confine an animal or thing within a yard.

    Drovers yarded the sheep for the night near the river.

    Ranchers yard their horses whenever wolves are near.

    Similarpen, corral, enclose, confine

    Note

    A farm verb for livestock: you yard cows or sheep, bringing them into an enclosure, often for the night. Elijah Kellogg's dog has yarded the cows, and in Barbara Baynton's Bush Studies (1902) a man supposes he will have to yard the sheep "to-night". It always takes an object and inflects regularly (yarded, yarding), which keeps it apart from the "yard at a time" verb, built on the measure instead. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • A dog in Elijah Kellogg's writing has yarded the cows. electricscotland.com
    • Good Old Times was first serialized in 1867. The 1893 citation does not give its original publication date; remove that date here. gutenberg.org
    • Barbara Baynton wrote Bush Studies, first published in 1902. gutenberg.org
    • The passage reports his supposition that he would have to yard the sheep, conditionally; the original spelling is "to-night". gutenberg.org
13. 13
    verbrarehumorousintransitive

    To move forward a yard at a time, rather than inching along.

    He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way down it, which was true.

    1982, Douglas Adams, Life

    Note

    A joke built on inch as a verb: if you can inch along, you can yard along. Douglas Adams uses it in Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), where a character inches up a corridor "as if he would rather be yarding his way down it." It works as a foil to inch and takes no object. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Douglas Adams uses yarding as a humorous contrast to inching in the cited corridor passage; the quoted wording is exact. en.wiktionary.org
    • Life, the Universe and Everything was written by Douglas Adams and first published in 1982. en.wikipedia.org
14. 14
    nounobsolete

    The penis; the male sexual organ.

    Loues her by the foot. Dum. He may not by the yard.

    c. 1595, William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”

    Note

    An old bodily sense grown from the word's meaning "rod" or "staff" (Old English ġierd), the same word as the "staff" sense. Shakespeare puns with it, setting "by the foot" against "by the yard", while Florio's Montaigne (1603) and a 1774 entry in James Cook's journals use it plainly. Readers will meet it in older texts, but it is obsolete, and a modern writer should not use it for the organ. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • The bodily sense belongs to the same historical word as the staff sense, derived from Old English ġierd, meaning rod or staff. en.wiktionary.org
    • Shakespeare uses the quoted contrast in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 5, scene 2; Boyet speaks the first phrase and Dumaine the second. folgerdigitaltexts.org
    • John Florio’s English translation of Montaigne’s Essays was first published in 1603. luminarium.org
    • Florio’s translation uses yard plainly for the penis. luminarium.org
    • James Cook uses yard for the penis in his journal entry dated 23 July 1774. en.wiktionary.org
15. 15
    nounobsolete

    A stick, rod, or staff; also a slender branch, twig, or shoot of a tree or plant.

    Note

    In older texts, a yard in someone's hand is a stick, not a length. This plain object stands behind the unit of length and the ship's spar, each of which is a rod put to a particular job. The meaning is obsolete now, so modern writing that wants a stick should say staff or rod. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Yard historically meant a staff, rod or stick, so it can denote a handheld object in older texts. en.wiktionary.org
    • The name of the unit of length derives from the older word for a rod or staff used in measuring. en.wikipedia.org
    • The nautical yard shares this etymology and denotes a timber spar serving a particular purpose on a ship. en.wiktionary.org
16. 16
    nounobsolete

    The yardland, an old English unit of land roughly equal to 30 acres.

    You must note, that two Fardells of Land make a Nooke of Land, and two Nookes make halfe a Yard of Land.

    a. 1634, W. Noye, The Complete Lawyer

    Note

    An old unit of land counted in fractions. W. Noye's The Compleat Lawyer (first printed 1651) explains that two fardels make a nook, and two nooks make half a yard of land. The usual phrase was yard of land, and the full name was yardland. Old English ġierd already carried this meaning, so it is among the oldest uses of the rod word. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

    • The yardland was an old English land unit notionally equal to about 30 acres. en.wikipedia.org
    • The unit was divided into fractional holdings. en.wikipedia.org
    • William Noy's The Compleat Lawyer was first published in 1651. The citation's ante-1634 dating reflects the author's lifetime, not first publication. openlibrary.org
    • Noye's book states that two fardels make a nook and two nooks make half a yard of land. en.wiktionary.org
    • Old English ġierd already denoted the yardland. en.wiktionary.org
    • The land-unit sense is among the oldest attested senses of the word derived from the term for a rod. en.wikipedia.org
17. 17
    nounobsolete

    The rod, a surveying unit of about 16½ feet (formerly 15 feet).

    Note

    A trap for anyone reading old surveys: here yard names the rod. A distance given in such yards may therefore be five and a half times longer than a modern reader assumes. The rod's own figure also shifted: it was once reckoned as 15 of an older, longer foot and later as 16½ of the shorter standard foot, so check which foot a document uses before converting.

18. 18
    nounobsolete

    The rood, an area of one quarter of an acre, measured in square rods.

    Note

    The area partner of the surveyor's rod, this is the rood, a quarter of an acre. In old deeds and land records, a yard of meadow can therefore mean a sizable plot rather than a strip three feet wide. Like the rod meaning, it is obsolete, and in older documents it is easily misread as the familiar unit of length. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Yard has an obsolete sense meaning a rood. en.wiktionary.org
    • A rood is a quarter of an acre and is measured using square rods. en.wikipedia.org
    • Historical deeds use yard of meadow as a description of land area. highlittletonhistory.org.uk
    • The familiar length unit yard equals three feet. en.wikipedia.org
    • Both the rod and rood senses of yard are obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
19. 19
    nounslang

    In the short scale, a billion (10⁹), equivalent to a thousand million or milliard in the long scale.