Pinfolds

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An enclosure for confining stray animals, particularly livestock or pigs
2. a place where animals are kept under observation to be retrieved by their owners
3. a pen designed to ensure that wandering animals are contained and prevented from causing disruption

Etymology: "Pinfolds" is the plural of "pinfold", a noun for an enclosure where stray animals were penned until their owners paid a fine to reclaim them. The word is built from two English parts. "Fold" is an enclosure for livestock, and the first element comes from Old English "pund", meaning a pen or enclosure, the same root that gave us "pound" in this sense. The compound was therefore a doubled idea: a pound placed inside a fold, both meaning roughly "pen." Over the Middle English period the spelling wandered, with forms such as "punfold" and "punfald" alongside "pinfold." The "i" in the modern spelling reflects a vowel shift that happened in the first element, so the word we use today is a much later shape of the Old English "pundfald."

Synonyms: enclosures, pens, corrals, fences, cages