garth

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English garth,^[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse garðr (“yard, courtyard, fence”),^{[4][5][6][7][8][2][9]} which is cognate with Old English geard (“fenced enclosure”), the source of yard.^[4][5][8][7] The OED compares Danish gaard and Swedish gård.^[4] The Old Norse word continues Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“courtyard”), also the source of Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌳𐍃 (gards, “house, household, courtyard”), Old Saxon gard (“field, ground, house”) and Old High German gart (“enclosure”).^[10][11] Kroonen derives it from the root Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- and notes that its original sense, a circle, survives in Faroese;^[10][12] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary go back to *gʰer- (“to grasp, enclose”).^[5][6] Orel compares Albanian gardh (“fence”) and Proto-Slavic *gordъ (“fence, town”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small piece of enclosed ground beside a house or other building, used as a yard, garden or paddock: before 1340, in Rolle's Psalter, which also has the sense "fence, hedge".^[4] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century, as a northern and western dialect word.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word meant an enclosed yard, courtyard or garden, and also a hedge or fence; it formed compounds such as appeles garthes, apple orchards, and garth cresse, garden cress.^[2] The sense "fence, hedge" became rare.^[4][8] From 1609 a garth was also a weir for catching fish, short for fishgarth.^[4][8] The word stayed in the dialects where Norse influence was strong, in the east and north of England;^[9][4] the English Dialect Dictionary records it in Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, with forms such as gaath and gath, for a small enclosure near a house or a field.^[13] The OED notes that it had become obsolete in Scots.^[4] Its best-known modern use, the open court enclosed by a cloister, short for cloister-garth, is recorded only from 1884.^[4][8]

Timeline

• before 1340 – a small enclosed piece of ground beside a building; a yard, garden or paddock.^[4][2]
• before 1340 – a fence or hedge (now rare).^[4][8]
• 1483 – verb, to enclose with a fence (now obsolete).^[4]
• 1609 – a weir for catching fish, a fishgarth.^[4]
• 1884 – the open court within a cloister.^[4][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An open court or quadrangle surrounded by a cloister: The monks walked around the garth in silence.^{[6][7][14][4]}
2. (archaic) A small enclosed yard, garden or paddock.^{[6][7][14][15]}
3. A weir or dam for catching fish; a fishgarth.^[15][4]
4. (rare) A fence or hedge.^[4][8][2]

Related words

• yard
• garden
• fishgarth
• girth

Usage notes

In northern English dialect a separate noun garth, a northern form of girth, meant a saddle-girth, a hoop for a barrel and, later, a child's hoop.^{[4][8][7][13]}

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b 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)
14. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster