Parrock

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small enclosed plot of grass or pasture, typically beside a house, used in Scottish dialect for keeping animals
2. In Scots usage, a little fenced field or paddock lying close to a dwelling and often used to graze a few animals
3. A modest walled or hedged piece of land near a homestead, known in Scottish speech as a paddock or small enclosure

Etymology: "Parrock" is a dialect survival: a small enclosed field, often kept near a house or farm, that has held onto its Old English name in northern English and Scottish speech. Its ancestor, Old English "pearruc" or "pearroc", meant a fence or railing used to enclose a space, and by extension the enclosed land itself. That sense of a fence around ground is the whole story of the word, from fenced barrier to fenced plot. The word may be connected to "park", which is thought to derive from a Latin-based word, "parricus", that also gave rise to "parrock". The link is uncertain, but the two words share the same core idea of land set apart by a boundary. Continental relatives show the same pattern: Dutch "perk" means a flowerbed, and German "Pferch" means a pen or fold for animals, both of them small walled or fenced spaces. The word also has a verb form in Middle English, "parroken" or "parrokken", meaning to enclose land or shut something in a pen, built directly from the noun.

Synonyms: paddock, enclosure, pasture