" yards "

[Verb]  | "yard" 

1: to drive into or confine in a restricted area : herd, pen

2: to deliver to or store in a yard

3: to congregate in or as if in a yard

Origin: 1758 ;

[Noun]  | "yard" | \ ˈyärd \

1: a small usually walled and often paved area open to the sky and adjacent to a building : court

2: the grounds of a building or group of buildings

3: the grounds immediately surrounding a house that are usually covered with grass

Origin: before 12th century ;

 Middle English yerd, going back to Old English geard "fence, enclosure, dwelling, home, district, country," going back to Germanic *garđa- (whence also Old Saxon gard "garden, dwelling, world," Middle Dutch gaert "garden, yard," Old High German gart "enclosure, circle, enclosed piece of property," Old Norse garðr "enclosure, courtyard," Gothic gards (i-stem) "house, household, courtyard"; from an n-stem *garđan-: Old Frisian garda "family property, courtyard," Old Saxon gardo "garden," Old High German garto), perhaps (if from *ghortós) going back to Indo-European *ghortos "enclosure," whence also Old Irish gort "arable or pasture field," Welsh garth "field, enclosure, fold," Breton garz "hedge," Latin hortus "garden," Greek chórtos "farmyard, pasturage";

  * Note : The above is only one possible account of this somewhat problematic etymon. If not from a Verner's Law variant of a putative stem *ghor-to-, the Germanic word could go back to *ghordho-, which would correspond to Slavic *gordŭ (Old Church Slavic gradŭ "town, garden, yard," Russian górod "city," Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian grâd) and Lithuanian gar͂das "pen, fold." The Slavic and Baltic words have, alternatively, been taken as loans from Germanic. This explanation would not, however, cover Albanian gardh "fence, wattled partition," or, more crucially, Sanskrit gṛháḥ "house," if it goes back to *ghr̥dhos, a zero-grade derivative. The Germanic etymon has traditionally been connected with a hypothetical verb base *ǵher- "grasp, enclose," see:n in Sanskrit harati "(s/he) takes, fetches, bears," jahrur "were fetched," though the Albanian, Balto-Slavic and Sanskrit words do not show a palatovelar. A palatovelar is evidenced, however, in a group of semantically related words: Lithuanian žárdas "rack for drying grain, flax or pease, cattle hurdle," ža͂rdis "fenced pasture," Old Prussian sardis "fence," regional Russian zoród, zaród "stack of hay or grain sheaves, enclosure around a stack." Also associated with Germanic *garđa- is a strong verb *gerđan- hypothetically evidenced by Gothic *-gairdan (attested only as the past participle bigaurdans, translating Greek perizōsámenos "girding oneself") and a weak verb *gurdjan- with zero grade—see: {gird:1|gird:1}, {girdle:1|girdle:1}, {girth:1|girth:1}.;

[Noun]  | "yard" 

1: any of various units of measure: such as

2: a unit of length equal in the U.S. to 0.9144 meter

3: a unit of volume equal to a cubic yard

Origin: before 12th century ;

 Middle English yerd, yerde "stick, pole, rod, spar supporting a sail, unit of measure," going back to Old English gierd "stick, rod," going back to Germanic *gazdjō (whence Old Frisian ierde "stick," Old Saxon gerdia, Old High German gerta), derivative of *gazda- "stick, rod" (whence Old High German gart "stick," Old Norse gaddr "goad, spike," Gothic gazds "sting"), going back to dialectal Indo-European *ghazdh- "stick, something pointed" (whence Latin hasta "spear," Middle Irish gat "withe, osier," probably also gas "shoot, twig"), probably a loanword from an unknown source;

[Noun]  | "cloth yard" 

1: a yard especially for measuring cloth; specifically : a unit of 37 inches equal to the Scottish ell and used also as a length for arrows

Origin: 15th century ;

[Noun]  | "front yard" 

1: an area in front of a house

Origin: 1740 ;

[Noun]  | "main yard" 

1: the yard of a mainsail

Origin: 15th century ;

[Noun]  | "navy yard" 

1: a yard where naval vessels are built or repaired

Origin: 1771 ;

[Noun]  | "Scot*land Yard" | \ ˌskät-lən(d)-ˈyärd \

1: the detective department of the London metropolitan police

Origin: 1864 ;

 Scotland Yard, street in London, formerly the headquarters of the metropolitan police;

[Noun]  | "yards" 

[Noun]  | "yards" 

[Noun]  | "yard" 

[Noun]  | "yard" 

[Phrase]  | "the whole nine yards"