farm
noun
[ fɑːm ]
• an area of land and its buildings, used for growing crops and rearing animals.
• "a farm of 100 acres"
Similar:
smallholding,
holding,
farmstead,
steading,
grange,
plantation,
estate,
farmland,
land,
acreage,
acres,
vineyard,
croft,
ranch,
station,
pen,
shamba,
tope,
farm
verb
• make one's living by growing crops or keeping livestock.
• "he has farmed organically for years"
Similar:
be a farmer,
practise farming,
cultivate/till/work the land,
till the soil,
rear livestock,
do agricultural work,
• send out or subcontract work to others.
• "it saves time and money to farm out some writing work to specialized companies"
• allow someone to collect and keep the revenues from (a tax) on payment of a fee.
• "the customs had been farmed to the collector for a fixed sum"
Origin:
Middle English: from Old French ferme, from medieval Latin firma ‘fixed payment’, from Latin firmare ‘fix, settle’ (in medieval Latin ‘contract for’), from firmus ‘constant, firm’; compare with firm2. The noun originally denoted a fixed annual amount payable as rent or tax; this is reflected in farm (sense 3 of the verb), which later gave rise to ‘to subcontract’ (farm (sense 2 of the verb)). The noun came to denote a lease, and, in the early 16th century, land leased for farming. The verb sense ‘grow crops or keep livestock’ dates from the early 19th century.
