Parc

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A detailed plan for the layout or design of an area, especially one involving landscaping or city planning
2. An enclosed area of land, often designed for leisure activities or natural preservation
3. A space allocated for a specific use or purpose, typically including paths, greenery, and recreational facilities

Etymology: The word here is simply an alternative spelling of "park", so its story is the story of that spelling family. Early on it meant nothing like a green space with swings. It described an enclosure for keeping animals: a pen or fold where livestock were held. The Frankish ancestor "parrik" meant "enclosure, pen, fence", and Medieval Latin borrowed it as "parcus" or "parricus", which passed into Old French as "parc" for a livestock pen. English took the word from Old French in the Middle English period, and for centuries its main sense was a walled hunting ground, reserved for deer and game and owned by a lord or the crown. Only later did it come to mean an ornamental landscape of grounds around a great house, and then public land laid out for recreation. The modern planning sense, a detailed scheme for how an area is arranged, grew out of those landscaped estates, so the same root that once fenced animals in now lays out whole neighbourhoods.

Synonyms: park, garden, reserve, green space, recreation area