Etymologically
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farm

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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

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)