Vineyard

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈvɪn.jɚd/

Definitions

1. A tract of land where grapevines are planted, tended, and harvested for the purpose of producing wine
2. A designated piece of land where grapevines are cultivated, maintained, and collected for wine production
3. An area of cultivated land devoted to growing grapes for making wine

Etymology: The name of a vineyard is, quite literally, a "wine yard," and the first half of the word has changed its shape in a surprising way. Old English had "wīnġeard," built from "wīn" (wine or vine) and "geard," an enclosed piece of land, the same root that gives modern English "yard" and its Dutch and German relatives, "wijngaard" and "Weingarten." Over time the native Old English word for the plant itself, "wīn," was pushed aside by "vine," borrowed from Old French "vigne," which came from Latin "vīnea," meaning vine or vineyard. The Middle English "vyneȝerd," recorded around 1300, shows this replacement in progress: the old word for the field kept its shape while the vine inside it took a new name. Some scholars suspect the older compound may already have meant "vine" rather than the enclosed plot, with the sound shift from "w" to "v" helped along by how easily those two sounds were swapped in speech. The core picture stays the same either way: a yard planted with wine-bearing vines.

Synonyms: grape plantation, grape farm