Garden

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɑːdn̩/

Definitions

1. A piece of land or outdoor space where flowers, vegetables, fruits, or ornamental plants are cultivated and grown
2. An area of land dedicated to the cultivation and display of plants, which may include flowers, herbs, vegetables, or decorative features
3. A designated outdoor space primarily used for the growing of plants, including decorative, edible, or ornamental varieties

Etymology: The word began as a plain description of land: a Proto-Germanic "gardô" meant a fence, hedge or enclosure, and the same root gave English "yard". The enclosure was the point, not the plants. Its Proto-Indo-European ancestor, "gʰórdʰos", also meant "fence, hedge", so the idea of walling off a patch of ground runs very deep in the family. The word reached English through Anglo-Norman "gardin", itself borrowed from a Frankish form, and it arrived in Middle English as "gardyn" and its variants. It is a doublet of "jardin", the French descendant of the same stock, and of "garth", a northern English word for an enclosure. English already had its own word for a garden, "wyrttūn" (literally "herb enclosure" or "plant enclosure"), but the French-derived term pushed it out. Across the Germanic languages the cognates keep the fence meaning alive. German "Garten" covers both garden and yard, and Icelandic "garður" means both garden and fence. The Latin "hortus", which English borrowed as "horticulture", is a more distant relative, sharing the root but following a different path.

Synonyms: yard, park, greenery