back yard, back-yard
[back- A. 5.]
A yard or enclosure at the back of a house. Also fig.
| 1659 in Suffolk (Mass., U.S.A.) Deeds (1885) III. §246 A back yard lying on the north side of the sajd dwelling house. 1679 Bedloe Popish Plot Ep. a, Creeping into back-yards, and firing stacks of Bavins. 1771 Pennant Tour in Scotland 1769 125 Land sufficient to build a house on, with gardens and back-yard. 1860 O. W. Holmes Prof. Breakf.-t. x. 311 A stone with a whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of the back-yard. 1882 C. Pebody Eng. Journalism xxiii. 186 The crowing of a cock in the back-yard of a suburban villa. 1920 J. Mander Story of N.Z. River i. iv. 64 When you..have seen the backyard side of people..you don't get upset by trifles. 1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Feb. 11 Nine Sydney he-men out of ten get sun-tanned by lying in the back yard. Ibid. 13 Sept. 10/2 She worked a backyard farmlet in one of the outer suburbs. 1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Aug. 143/1 Few backyard henhouses appear to be planned for the number of birds they ultimately hold. 1962 Listener 11 Jan. 51/2 Inside the area which a substantial power regards as its own backyard, the writ of the United Nations does not run. |
Hence backˈyarder colloq., (a) a person who keeps fowls in his backyard; a small poultry-keeper; (b) a fowl kept in the backyard of a house.
| 1922 Daily Mail 18 Nov. 11 Backyarders can make money out of fowls if they will feed them on the simple Karswood system. Ibid. 9 Dec. 14 The average total of eggs per day is seven, which..is very good, especially as they are backyarders. 1942 Gen. 1 Oct. 21/1 Backyarders keep fifteen million hens according to Agriculture Ministry census. |