farm

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /fɑːm/, US /fɑːrm/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ferme (“fixed rent, lease”),^[2][3] borrowed from Old French ferme (“a rent, lease”),^[4][2] from Medieval Latin firma (“fixed payment”),^[4][2][5] from Latin firmāre (“to fix, settle, confirm”), in Medieval Latin “to contract for”,^[4][5][6] from firmus (“firm, stable”),^[4][2] from Proto-Indo-European *dher- (“to hold firmly, support”).^[4] The verb is from Anglo-French fermer.^[2][4] It is related to firm.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fixed yearly payment, a rent: about 1300 in Barnhart and Etymonline,^[2][4] with to farm, “at a fixed rent”, from 1297 in the OED.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word has a confused history, but there is agreement that the purely agricultural sense is fairly modern.^[4] A fixed sum accepted instead of taxes, and the letting out of public revenue to a collector, gave the farmer who collected rents or taxes, from about 1384.^[2][8][5] A tract of leased land is from 1334 in the Rolls of Parliament,^[2] and cultivated land, leased or not, from the 1520s,^[4] or 1523 in the OED.^[8] A tract of water for breeding fish or other animals is from 1866.^[8] The verb meant “to rent land” from 1435,^[2] and the agricultural sense, “to cultivate”, is first in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719).^[2][4] The old sense survives in farm out, “to lease, subcontract”.^[2][4] Buy the farm, “to die in battle”, dates from at least the Second World War.^[4] A different Old English feorm meant food, provision or a feast.^[8]

Timeline

• 1297 – to farm, at a fixed rent.^[8]
• c. 1300 – a fixed rent.^[2]
• 1334 – a tract of leased land.^[2]
• c. 1384 – farmer, a collector of rents.^[2]
• 1435 – verb, to rent land.^[2]
• 1523 – land held for cultivation.^[8]
• 1719 – verb, to cultivate.^[2][4]
• 1866 – a fish farm.^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An area of land used for growing crops or raising animals.
2. An area of water used to breed fish or shellfish.
3. An installation for a particular purpose: a wind farm.
4. (baseball) A minor-league club that trains players for a major-league team.

Verb

1. To grow crops or raise animals.
2. To cultivate land.
3. farm out: to send out work to others; to subcontract.
4. To collect taxes or revenue for a fixed payment.

Word family

• farmable
• unfarmed
• farmer
• farming
• farm out

Related words

• firm
• confirm
• affirm

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster also lists a dialect verb farm, “to cleanse”, from Old English feormian.^[3] In the dialects of northern and southern England it meant to clean out or put in order, as a stable.^[9]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)