different between homestead vs ranch

English

Etymology

Equivalent to home +? stead. Cognate to German Heimstatt, Dutch heemstede and Swedish hemstad.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?ho?m?st?d/

Noun

homestead (plural homesteads)

1. A house together with surrounding land and buildings, especially on a farm; the property comprising these.
   • 1700, John Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer” in Fables, Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 225,^[1]

     A Yard she had with Pales enclos’d about,

     Some high, some low, and a dry Ditch without.

     Within this Homestead, liv’d without a Peer,

     For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer:

   • 1778, Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, London: B. White & Son, 1789, Letter 43 to Daines Barrington, p. 242,^[2]

     […] no sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar.

   • 1861, George Eliot, Silas Marner, Part 1, Chapter 1,^[3]

     It was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing close upon the road […]

   • 1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers! Part 1, Chapter 2,^[4]

     He owned exactly six hundred and forty acres of what stretched outside his door; his own original homestead and timber claim, making three hundred and twenty acres, and the half-section adjoining, the homestead of a younger brother who had given up the fight, gone back to Chicago to work in a fancy bakery […]

2. The place that is one's home.
   • 1649, Thomas Bancroft, “To the never-dying Memory of the Noble Lord Hastings” in Richard Brome (ed.), Lachrymæ Musarum, London, p. 54,^[5]

     Grief from yeer to yeer

     Rents my poor Heart, and makes his Home-stead there:

3. (South Africa) A cluster of several houses occupied by an extended family.
4. (obsolete) The home or seat of a family; place of origin.
   • c. 1620s, Joseph Hall, The Contemplations upon the History of the New Testament, London, 1661, pp. 30-31,^[6]

     Where then wast thou tempted, O Blessed Jesu? or whither wentest thou to meet with our great Adversary? I do not see thee led into the marketplace, or any other part of the City, or thy home-stead of Nazareth, but into the vast Wilderness, the habitation of beasts;

   • 1799, William Tooke, View of the Russian Empire during the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Present Century, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 2, Book 2, Section 4, pp. 38-39,^[7]

     The PETSCHENEGRANS, as they are called in the russian and polish year-books, name themselves Kangar or Kangli, and were a powerful nomadic nation, which we can trace back to a homestead on the rivers Volga and Ural.

Translations

Verb

homestead (third-person singular simple present homesteads, present participle homesteading, simple past and past participle homesteaded)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To acquire or settle on land as a homestead.
   • 1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Chapter 2,^[8]

     When Samuel and Liza came to the Salinas Valley all the level land was taken, the rich bottoms, the little fertile creases in the hills, the forests, but there was still marginal land to be homesteaded, and in the barren hills, to the east of what is now King City, Samuel Hamilton homesteaded.

Derived terms

• homesteader

See also

• hstead
• homesteading
• smallholding
• croft

Anagrams

• deathsome

English

Etymology

Recorded since 1808, farm sense since 1831. From American Spanish rancho (“small farm, group of farm huts”), in Spanish originally “group of people who eat together”, from ranchear (“to lodge or station”), from Old French ranger (“install in position”), from rang (“row, line”) (cognate with English rank)

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?ænt?/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /???nt?/
• Rhymes: -??nt?, -ænt?

Noun

ranch (plural ranches)

1. A large plot of land used for raising cattle, sheep or other livestock.
2. A small farm that cultivates vegetables and/or livestock, especially one in the Southwestern United States.
3. A house or property on a plot of ranch land.
4. Ranch dressing.

Derived terms

• ranch dressing
• rancher
• ranchhand
• ranchslider, ranch slider

Translations

Verb

ranch (third-person singular simple present ranches, present participle ranching, simple past and past participle ranched)

1. To operate a ranch; engage in ranching.

   Formally the widow still ranches, but in fact she leaves all ranching to the foreman.

2. To work on a ranch

   Bill had ranched only five years when his dad made him foreman.

Translations

Danish

Etymology

From English ranch.

Noun

ranch c (singular definite ranchen, plural indefinite rancher)

1. a ranch

Declension

Derived terms

• gæsteranch

See also

• rancher

References

• “ranch” in Den Danske Ordbog

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English ranch, from Spanish rancho (“small farm, group of farm huts”).

Pronunciation

Noun

ranch m (plural ranches or ranchen, diminutive ranchje n)

1. ranch, notably livestock breeding farm, especially in North America and in other English-speaking countries

Related terms

• rancher m

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English ranch, from American Spanish rancho (“small farm, group of farm huts”), in Spanish originally “group of people who eat together”, from ranchear (“to lodge, station”), from Old French ranger (“to install in position”), from rang (“row, line”) (cognate with English rank). Doublet of rancio.

Noun

ranch m (invariable)

1. A ranch, notably livestock breeding farm.