Town Once Meant an Enclosed Farmyard
A town is a settlement larger than a village. The word originally named a fenced enclosure.
A town is a settlement larger than a village and smaller than a city. Old English *tun* meant an enclosure or fenced farmyard, then a homestead, then a group of them. That is why so many English place names end in *-ton*: Brighton, Preston, Kingston and thousands more were originally single enclosed farmsteads. German *Zaun* still means a fence, and the same root gives Dutch *tuin*, a garden. The enclosure came first; the settlement grew inside it.
- A settlement. *A market town.*
- The centre. *Going into town.*
- An enclosure (archaic). *Tun.*
- -ton — in place names. *Preston.*
- Old English — *tun*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | town | A town. |
| Plural | towns | Towns. |
| Compound | township | A township. |
| German | Zaun | A fence. |
| Dutch | tuin | A garden. |
- The town has a market.Settlement.
- Preston contains -ton.Place names.
- Zaun still means fence.German.
Settlement endings in place names
- -ton — an enclosure or farmstead
- -ham — a homestead or village
- -by — a Norse village
- -thorpe — a Norse outlying farm
- -chester — a Roman fort, from Latin *castrum*
Old English *tun*, an enclosure or farmyard, of Germanic origin, related to German *Zaun*, a fence.
What did town originally mean?
An enclosure or fenced farmyard. The settlement sense grew from the homesteads inside such enclosures.
Why do so many place names end in -ton?
Because each was originally a single enclosed farmstead, using the same Old English word.