1chiefly British a piece of uncultivated ground adjoining a building, typically one enclosed by walls or other buildings:tiny houses with the lavatory in the yard
North American the garden of a house.
2an area of land used for a particular purpose or business:a builder’s yard
an urban residential compound comprising a number of small rented dwellings around a shared open area.
South African a plot of land, or the grounds of a building, accommodating a number of small rooms let out as living space.
4 (Yard) (especially among expatriate Jamaicans) home; Jamaica:life in Yard is no Caribbean holiday
verb
[with object]
1North American store or transport (wood) in or to a timber yard:he is the last logger to be using a sled for yarding logs (as noun yarding)Canadian operators never practised yarding on a wider scale
2put (farm animals) into an enclosure:sheep should be yarded even in the spring
3 [no object]North American (of moose) gather as a herd for the winter:they note changes in the numbers of moose yarding together
Origin:
Old Englishgeard 'building, home, region', from a Germanic base related to Russian gorod 'town'. Compare with garden and orchard
