Other forms: crofts
A croft is a small rented farm in Scotland. Work a croft, a crofting township, the family croft.
It is a legally defined holding in the Highlands and Islands, usually too small to live on alone, which is why crofters have always had other work as well. Crofting tenure is protected by statute — security of tenure and the right to pass it on were won after the land agitation of the 1880s. Note crofter, crofting; and that the word is Old English for an enclosed field.
1nouncroftA small rented farm in Scotland.
“The family lived on a small croft in the Highlands, keeping sheep and growing potatoes.”
croft is a small farm.
Old English croft meant an enclosed field, possibly from a Germanic word about a curve or hill. The Scottish legal sense is much later and specific.
Proto-Indo-European
*grewb- — to bend; arch, crook, curve
Proto-Germanic
*kruftaz — a hill; a curve
Old English
croft — enclosed field
Middle English
croft
English, today
croft
Built from
The noun is derived from Middle English croft, crofft, croffte, croofte, crofte (“croft”), from Old English croft (“enclosed field”); further etymology, but possibly from Proto-Germanic kruftaz (“a hill; a curve”), from Proto-Indo-European grewb- (“to bend; arch, crook, curve”); see also crop. The English word is cognate with Middle Dutch kroft, krocht, crocht (“high and dry land; a field on the downs”), Middle Low German kroch (“enclosed piece of farmland or pasture”), Scots croft, craft (“croft”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA