Etymology
1. "ground around a house," O.E.
geard "enclosure, garden, court, house, yard," from P.Gmc.
*garda (cf. O.N.
garðr "enclosure, garden, yard;" O.Fris.
garda, Du.
gaard, O.H.G.
garto, Ger.
Garten "garden;" Goth.
gards "house,"
garda "stall"), from PIE
*gharto-, from base
*gher- "to grasp, enclose" (cf. O.E.
gyrdan "to gird," Skt.
ghra- "house," Alb.
garth "hedge," L.
hortus "garden," Phrygian
-gordum "town," Gk.
khortos "pasture," O.Ir.
gort "field," Bret.
garz "enclosure, garden," and second element in L.
cohors "enclosure, yard, company of soldiers, multitude"). Lith.
gardas "pen, enclosure," O.C.S.
gradu "town, city," and Rus.
gorod, -grad "town, city" belong to this group, but linguists dispute whether they are independent developments or borrowings from Gmc.
Yard sale is attested by 1976. M.E.
yerd "yard-land" (c.1450) was a measure of about 30 acres.
Yardbird "convict" is 1956, from the notion of prison yards; earlier it meant "basic trainee" (World War II armed forces slang).
2. Etymology tree
3. Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ-
4. Proto-Indo-European *-os
5. Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰos
6. Proto-Germanic *gardaz
7. Proto-West Germanic *gard
8. Old English ġeard
9. Middle English yerd
10. English yard
11. 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”).
12. See also North Frisian guard, Guart (“garden, yard”), Dutch gaard, gaarde (“garden, yard”), German Garten (“garden, yard”), Danish, Swedish gård (“farm, estate, land; court, yard”), Faroese, Icelandic garður (“garden; fence”), Norn gart (“farm”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk gard, gård (“farm; townhouse”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌳𐍃 (gards, “court, yard; house”), Lithuanian gardas (“pen, enclosure”), Russian го́род (górod, “town”), Serbo-Croatian grad (“town”), Slovene grad (“castle”), Albanian gardh (“fence”), Romanian gard (“fence”), Avestan 𐬔𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬛𐬵𐬀 (gərədha, “dev's cave”), Sanskrit गृह (gṛha, “house, habitation, home, dwelling”)), Medieval Latin gardinus, jardinus (“garden, yard”). Doublet of garden, garth, and gord. See: Middle English '
yerd', German, old spelling '
Garten', Sanskrit '
गृह'.
Verbs referencing "yard"
English
garden.