# yard

Pronunciation: US say "YARD" /jɑɹd/; UK say "YAHD" /jɑːd/

## Noun

1. The area of land surrounding a house, usually taken up mostly by lawn. *(Australia, Canada, US)*
   - Simple: The land around a house, usually covered mostly by grass.
   - _The dog spent the afternoon digging holes in the yard._
   - _Neighbors gathered in the yard for a summer barbecue._
2. A unit of length equal to three feet in the US and British systems, about 0.91 meters.
   - Simple: A length equal to three feet, used to measure things.
   - _The carpet measures four yards across the main room._
   - _She cut a yard of ribbon for the gift._
3. A small, usually uncultivated plot of ground beside a house or similar building or, now more often, inside its grounds.
   - Simple: A small outdoor space next to a building or inside its grounds, usually not planted as a garden.
   - _The apartments shared a paved yard where the trash cans were kept._
   - _A narrow yard separated the chapel from the rectory._
4. An enclosed outdoor area set aside for a particular purpose, such as on a farm or railroad.
   - Simple: An outdoor space with a fence or walls, used for a special job like farming or trains.
   - _Freight cars were shunted across the yard at dawn._
   - _The farmer drove the sheep into the yard for shearing._
5. Short for cubic yard: a unit of volume, about 0.76 cubic meters, used especially for concrete, soil, gravel, and rock. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Short for cubic yard: a measure of volume, often used in digging and building work.
   - _The contractor ordered a yard of concrete for the small slab._
   - _Every yard of rock removed cost the company more time._
6. Short for square yard: a unit of area, about 0.84 square meters, used especially when selling carpet and flooring. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Short for square yard: a measure of area, often used for carpet or 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._
7. A person's house or home. *(dialectal, Jamaica, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: The place where someone lives, the home a person comes back to.
   - _She invited the whole crew back to her yard for dinner._
   - _Come round my yard later and we can play video games._
8. One hundred, especially one hundred dollars or a hundred units of another currency. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: A hundred dollars, or a hundred of some other money.
   - _He won a couple of yards at the poker table._
   - _She slipped the valet a yard to keep quiet._
9. A unit in another measurement system that is similar in makeup or length to the standard yard.
   - Simple: A measure of length in older or foreign systems that is close 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. 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.
   - Simple: A long pole fixed across a ship's mast, from which a sail hangs.
   - _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._
11. An area where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, and similar needs.
   - Simple: An area where deer or moose gather in winter for food and safety.
   - _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._

## Verb

12. To confine an animal or thing within a yard.
   - Simple: To keep an animal shut inside a fenced space.
   - _Drovers yarded the sheep for the night near the river._
   - _Ranchers yard their horses whenever wolves are near._

## Verb

13. To move forward a yard at a time, rather than inching along. *(rare)*
   - Simple: To move forward a yard at a time instead of in tiny steps.

## Noun

14. The penis; the male sexual organ. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The penis, the male organ used for sex and for passing urine.
15. A stick, rod, or staff; also a slender branch, twig, or shoot of a tree or plant. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: (old use) A stick or rod, or a thin branch of a tree.
16. The yardland, an old English unit of land roughly equal to 30 acres. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An old English way of measuring farmland, about 30 acres.
17. The rod, a surveying unit of about 16½ feet (formerly 15 feet). *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An old land-measuring unit, about sixteen and a half feet long.
18. The rood, an area of one quarter of an acre, measured in square rods. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: An old unit of land area, about a quarter of an acre.

## Other meanings

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

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3–4, 7, 11–12** — From Middle English yerd, from Old English ġeard ("yard, garden, fence, enclosure"), from Proto-Germanic *gardaz ("enclosure, yard"), from a Proto-Indo-European root *gʰerdʰ- meaning "to enclose." It is a doublet of garden, garth, and gord, and is related to German Garten and Russian górod ("town").
**Meanings 2, 5–6, 8–10, 13–18** — Old English ġierd, which meant "branch", "rod, staff" or "measuring stick", became Middle English ȝerde and goes back to Proto-Germanic *gazdaz. It shares that origin with Dutch gard ("twig") and German Gerte, and Latin hasta ("spear") is probably a relative too.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/yard (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).