Other forms: farming, farms, farmed
A farm is the land where a family grows food and keeps animals. A dairy farm, work on a farm, the farm gate.
British farms average a few hundred acres and most are family businesses, though the largest are very much larger. Farm gate price is what the farmer receives, as against what the shop charges, and the gap is a standing grievance. Note farmer, farming; farm out, meaning to give work to somebody else; and that the word originally meant a fixed rent rather than land.
1nounfarmLand where crops are grown and animals kept.
“My uncle has a farm with cows, sheep and chickens.”
2verbworkTo work such land.
“They farm wheat and barley on the flat land near the river.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
farm is agricultural land.
Middle English ferme meant a fixed rent or lease, from Medieval Latin firma, a fixed payment. Land held on such terms became a farm, and farm out keeps the older sense.
Proto-Indo-European
*perkʷ-
Proto-Germanic
*fermō
Old English
feorm — rent, provision, supplies, feast
Medieval Latin
ferma
Anglo-Norman
ferme — rent, lease, farm
Middle English
ferme
English, today
farm
Built from
Middle English ferme, farme (“rent, revenue, produce, factor, stewardship, meal, feast”), influenced by Anglo-Norman ferme (“rent, lease, farm”), from Medieval Latin ferma, firma. There is debate as to whether Medieval Latin acquired this term from Old English feorm (“rent, provision, supplies, feast”), from Proto-Germanic fermō, firhuma- (“means of living, subsistence”), from Proto-Germanic ferhwō (“life force, body, being”), from Proto-Indo-European perkʷ- (“life, force, strength, tree”); or from Latin firmus (“solid, secure”), from Proto-Italic fermos, from Proto-Indo-European dʰer-mo-s (“holding”), from the root dʰer- (“to hold”). If the former etymology is correct, the term is related to Old English feorh (“life, spirit”), Icelandic fjör (“life, vitality, vigour, animation”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍈𐌿𐍃 (“the world”). Compare also Old English feormehām (“farm”), feormere (“purveyor, supplier, grocer”). Cognate with Scots ferm (“rent, farm”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA