My mother said to me today, "Only Americans have 'yards' everywhere else it is a garden" (as in "go out in the yard") I don't know that to be strictly true, but because of her comment I had to look up the word. Interestingly enough, "yard" and "garden" come from the same word.
"ground around a house," O.E. geard "enclosure, garden, court, house, yard," from P.Gmc. *garda (cf. O.N. garðr "enclosure, garden, yard;" O.Fris. garda , Du. gaard , O.H.G. garto , Ger. Garten "garden;" Goth. gards "house," garda "stall"), from PIE *gharto- , from base *gher- "to grasp, enclose" (cf. O.E. gyrdan "to gird," Skt. ghra- "house," Alb. garth "hedge," L. hortus "garden," Phrygian -gordum "town," Gk. khortos "pasture," O.Ir. gort "field," Bret. garz "enclosure, garden," and second element in L. cohors "enclosure, yard, company of soldiers, multitude"). Lith. gardas "pen, enclosure," O.C.S. gradu "town, city," and Rus. gorod, -grad "town, city" belong to this group, but linguists dispute whether they are independent developments or borrowings from Gmc. Yard sale is attested by 1976. M.E. yerd "yard-land" (mid-15c.) was a measure of about 30 acres. Yardbird "convict" is 1956, from the notion of prison yards; earlier it meant "basic trainee" (World War II armed forces slang).
The
definition
yard
–noun
1. the ground that immediately adjoins or surrounds a house, public building, or other structure.
2. an enclosed area outdoors, often paved and surrounded by or adjacent to a building; court.
3. an outdoor enclosure designed for the exercise of students, inmates, etc.: a prison yard.
4. an outdoor space surrounded by a group of buildings, as on a college campus.
5. a pen or other enclosure for livestock.
6. an enclosure within which any work or business is carried on (often used in combination): navy yard; a brickyard.
7. an outside area used for storage, assembly, or the like.
8. Railroads . a system of parallel tracks, crossovers, switches, etc., where cars are switched and made up into trains and where cars, locomotives, and other rolling stock are kept when not in use or when awaiting repairs.
9. a piece of ground set aside for cultivation; garden; field.
10. the winter pasture or browsing ground of moose and deer.
11. the Yard, British . Scotland Yard ( def. 2 ) .
