Orchard Is Half Latin and Half Old English
An orchard is an enclosure of fruit trees. The word is a compound built from a Latin garden and an English yard.
An orchard is a piece of land planted with fruit trees. The word is a linguistic hybrid: the first part comes from Latin *hortus*, a garden, and the second from Old English *geard*, a yard or enclosure. Two languages, one small field. Traditional orchards, with widely spaced standard trees, are now recognised as valuable wildlife habitat.
- Land planted with fruit trees. *An apple orchard.*
- The trees themselves. *The orchard was in blossom.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | orchard | A cider orchard. |
| Plural | orchards | Kentish orchards. |
| Related | grove | An olive grove. |
| Related | plantation | A banana plantation. |
| Related | horticulture | A horticulture course. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The orchard yields more than we can use.Fruit growing.
- Old orchards support rare beetles and lichens.A conservation point.
- Wassailing was a midwinter orchard custom.Singing to the trees to encourage a good crop.
Orchard words
- Standard — a full-sized tree on vigorous rootstock
- Dwarf — a small tree on restricting rootstock
- Grafting — joining a chosen variety to a rootstock
- Pollination group — varieties that flower together and fertilise each other
- Windfall — fruit blown down before picking
From Old English *ortgeard*, probably from Latin *hortus*, garden, and *geard*, enclosure. The same *geard* is inside *yard* and *vineyard*.
Orchard or grove?
An orchard grows fruit for harvest. A grove is a small group of trees of one kind, and need not be cultivated for fruit.
Why are apple trees grafted?
Because seedlings do not reproduce the parent variety. Every Bramley or Cox is a graft descended from one original tree.