yard

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /jɑːd/
• (General American) enPR: yärd, IPA^(key): /jɑɹd/

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• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

From Middle English yerd, yard, ȝerd, ȝeard, from Old English ġeard (“yard, garden, fence, enclosure, enclosed place, court, residence, dwelling, home, region, land; hedge”), from Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“enclosure, yard”) (compare Dutch gaard, obsolete German Gart, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål gård, Norwegian Nynorsk gard), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰos, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- (“to enclose”) (Lithuanian gardas (“pen, enclosure”), Russian го́род (górod, “town”), Albanian gardh (“fence”), Romanian gard, Avestan 𐬔𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬛𐬵𐬀‎ (gərədha, “dev's cave”), Sanskrit गृह (gṛha)).

yard (plural yards)

1. A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.

2. An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.
   • 1931, Francis Beeding, “2/2”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps‎:

     A little further on, to the right, was a large garage, where the charabancs stood, half in and half out of the yard.

3. A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
4. (Jamaica) One’s house or home.

See also Yard

yard (third-person singular simple present yards, present participle yarding, simple past and past participle yarded)

1. (transitive) To confine to a yard.
   • 1893, Elijah Kellogg, Good old times, or, Grandfather's struggles for a homestead

     As they reached the door, Bose, having yarded the cows, was stealing around the corner of the pig-sty, and making for the woods.

From Middle English ȝerde, yerd, ȝerd, from Old English ġierd (“branch; rod, staff; measuring stick; yardland”), from Proto-Germanic *gazdijō, from *gazdaz. Cognate with Dutch gard (“twig”), German Gerte and probably related to Latin hasta (“spear”).[1]

yard (plural yards)

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).
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ […].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

2. Units of similar composition or length in other systems.
3. (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.
4. (obsolete) A branch, twig, or shoot.
5. (obsolete) A staff, rod, or stick.
6. (obsolete, medicine) A penis.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     there were some people found who tooke pleasure to unhood the end of their yard, and to cut off the fore-skinne after the manner of the Mahometans and Jewes […].

7. (US, slang, uncommon) 100 dollars.
8. (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.

9. (obsolete) The rod, a surveying unit of (once) 15 or (now) 16½ feet.
10. (obsolete) The rood, area bound by a square rod, ¼ acre.

• (arm length): See ell
• ($100): See hundred
• (surveying measure): See rod
• (large unit of area): See virgate
• (small unit of area): See rood

• (unit of area): See virgate

• (unit of area): See virgate

Clipping of French milliard.

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.

• Dray, Dyar, Rady, adry, dray

yard m

1. yard (unit of length)

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

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yard m (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

• “yard” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

yard f (plural yard)

1. yard (unit of length)

• iarda

yard

1. Alternative form of yerd