different between outback vs yard

English

Etymology

out +? back

Pronunciation

Noun

outback (usually uncountable, plural outbacks)

1. (Australia) The most remote and desolate areas of Australia; the desert and areas too arid for growing crops.
   • 1951 June, W. J. Banks, Flying Doctors of the Outback, The Rotarian, page 23,

     Communication like this is making a big change in the lives of Australia?s “outback” people.

   • 2000, Shirley W. Gray, Australia, page 31,

     In the outback, many people live and work on sheep and cattle ranches.

   • 2002, Erinn Banting. Australia: The People, page 20,

     The outback?s rich, red soil looked like blood because of all the iron in it, and the vast land was so still and barren that it seemed lifeless.

   • 2010, Lonely Planet, BBC Earth, The Traveller?s Guide to Planet Earth, page 129,

     Astronomers consider the outback area around Alice Springs — with its low pollution, low humidity and few light sources — to be among the best star-gazing locations on earth.

Synonyms

• (the) bush

Derived terms

• outbacker
• outbackery

Translations

Adjective

outback (comparative more outback, superlative most outback)

1. Characteristic of the most remote and desolate areas of Australia; very remote from urban areas.
   • 1964, Western Australian Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, page 3081,

     […] the Civil Service Association is not particularly happy with the decision of the Government in regard to rents and the way they will be levied on its members in the more outback country areas.

   • 1996, David H. Bayley, Police for the Future, page 70,

     In the Northern Territory, arguably the most outback of Australian states, police are still not armed.

   • 2002, Andrew Swaffer, Katrina O'Brien, Darroch Donald, Australia: Handbook, page 215,

     From Bathurst the Mitchell Highway heads northwest through Dubbo and Bourke Nyngan then continues for almost 200 km to the most outback of towns Bourke.

   • 2008, Mike Keenan, The Shadows of Horses, Easyread Large Edition, page 135,

     We had a frosty meeting and he took me around to the AML&F Co?s staff officer, requesting a jackaroo position for me on the company?s most outback station in Queensland.

Translations

Adverb

outback (not comparable)

1. To or towards the most remote and desolate areas of Australia.
   • 1953, Western Australian Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, page 241,

     If we want this country to develop, we have to depend on men who are prepared to go outback and try to discover new shows.

   • 1984, Australian Senate, Parliamentary Debates: Senate Weekly Hansard, Volume 3, page 1474,

     This has allowed Australians really to go outback in some reasonable comfort to see the attractions of this country.

   • 2012, Andy Hughes, A Ringer?s Hands, page 10,

     Like me, the son was inspired to go outback, and when things went wrong for him the desert seemed like the perfect place to perish and decay, to get blown around on the wind.

Translations

See also

• back o' Bourke, back of beyond, bush

Anagrams

• back out, backout

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /j??d/
• (General American) enPR: yärd, IPA^(key): /j??d/
• Rhymes: -??(?)d

Etymology 1

From Middle English yerd, yard, ?erd, ?eard, from Old English ?eard (“yard, garden, fence, enclosure, enclosed place, court, residence, dwelling, home, region, land; hedge”), from Proto-Germanic *gardaz (“enclosure, yard”) (compare Dutch gaard, obsolete German Gart, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål gård, Norwegian Nynorsk gard), from Proto-Indo-European *g?órd?os, from Proto-Indo-European *g?erd?- (“to enclose”) (Lithuanian gardas (“pen, enclosure”), Russian ?????? (górod, “town”), Albanian gardh (“fence”), Romanian gard, Avestan ????????????????????????????? (g?r?dha, “dev's cave”), Sanskrit ??? (g?ha)), Medieval Latin gardinus, Medieval Latin jardinus. Doublet of garden.

Noun

yard (plural yards)

1. A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.
2. (US, Canada, Australia) The property surrounding one's house, typically dominated by one's lawn.

   Synonym: (UK) garden

3. An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.
4. A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
5. (Jamaican, MLE) One’s house or home.

Derived terms

See also Yard

Translations

Verb

yard (third-person singular simple present yards, present participle yarding, simple past and past participle yarded)

1. (transitive) To confine to a yard.

Etymology 2

From Middle English ?erde, yerd, ?erd, from Old English ?ierd (“branch; rod, staff; measuring stick; yardland”), from Proto-West Germanic *ga?d, from Proto-Germanic *gazdaz. Cognate with Dutch gard (“twig”), German Gerte and probably related to Latin hasta (“spear”).

Noun

yard (plural yards)

1. A unit of length equal to 3 feet in the US customary and British imperial systems of measurement, equal to precisely 0.9144 m since 1959 (US) or 1963 (UK).
2. Units of similar composition or length in other systems.
4. (nautical) Any spar carried aloft.
   1. (nautical) A long tapered timber hung on a mast to which is bent a sail, and may be further qualified as a square, lateen, or lug yard. The first is hung at right angles to the mast, the latter two hang obliquely.
5. (obsolete) A branch, twig, or shoot.
6. (obsolete) A staff, rod, or stick.
7. (obsolete, medicine) A penis.
8. (US, slang, uncommon) 100 dollars.
9. (obsolete) The yardland, an obsolete English unit of land roughly understood as 30 acres.
   • a. 1634, W. Noye, The Complete Lawyer, 57:

     You must note, that two Fardells of Land make a Nooke of Land, and two Nookes make halfe a Yard of Land.

10. (obsolete) The rod, a surveying unit of (once) 15 or (now) 16+¹?₂ feet.
11. (obsolete) The rood, area bound by a square rod, ¹?₄ acre.

Synonyms

• (arm length): See ell
• ($100): See hundred
• (surveying measure): See rod
• (large unit of area): See virgate
• (small unit of area): See rood

Hypernyms

• (unit of area): See virgate

Hyponyms

• (unit of area): See virgate

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

Clipping of milliard.

Noun

yard (plural yards)

1. (finance) 10⁹, A short scale billion; a long scale thousand millions or milliard.

   I need to hedge a yard of yen.

References

Anagrams

• Dray, Dyar, Rady, adry, dray

Czech

Noun

yard m

1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

• yard in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• yard in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

French

Etymology

From English yard.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ja?d/

Noun

yard m (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

Further reading

• “yard” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

From English yard

Noun

yard f (plural yards)

1. yard (unit of length)

   Synonym: iarda

Further reading

• yard in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Jamaican Creole

Alternative forms

• yaad, yawd

Etymology

From English yard.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /j??d/, /j??d/
• Hyphenation: yard

Noun

yard

1. home

Noun

yard (plural: yard dem, quantified: yard)

1. yard

Further reading

• Richard Allsopp (main editor), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, 2003 (reprint by The University of the West Indies Press, originally 1996 by Oxford University Press), ISBN 9789766401450 (originally ISBN-10: 976-640-145-4), page 617

Middle English

Noun

yard

1. Alternative form of yerd