crofter

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — croft sits at #8,364neutral

Other forms: crofters

A crofter is a small tenant farmer, especially in Scotland. A Highland crofter.

The holdings are small and nearly every crofter has another job as well. A crofter has legal protections won after the land agitation of the 1880s.

Definitions of crofter

1nouncrofterA small tenant farmer, especially in Scotland.C2
“The crofter kept forty sheep and drove the school bus.”

crofter is a farmer.

Where it comes from

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
croft
English, today
crofter

Built from

crofte · Middle English — croft
crocht · Middle Dutch — high and dry land; a field on the downs
craft · Scots — croft

From croft + -er. croft 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

Practised in Farm & Countryside

Practise this word

crofter in the wild

A crofter is a person who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer in rural areas.
Croft (land)
In Northern England, "crofter" was a term associated with tenant farming and rural employment.
Croft (land)
The SCF's mission is to safeguard and promote the rights, livelihoods, and culture of crofters and their communities.
Scottish Crofting Federation
The crofters helped each other with harvesting and other work.
Auchtubh
The last worked Croft was number 8 Auchtubh next to Coshnachie The crofter was Chrissie MacCrae who had sheep cows hens and geese.
Auchtubh

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the croft family

croft

crofter — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

← Vocabulary