Other forms: fields
A field is a wide open piece of farm land. A field of wheat, cross the field, the top field.
In sport, the field is the playing area and also the competitors: a strong field. In academic work, a field is a subject area — her field is medieval history — and fieldwork is research done outside the office. In physics, a field is a region where a force acts: a magnetic field. As a verb, to field a question is to deal with it. Note field of view; playing field; and leave the field.
1nounfieldA wide open piece of farm land.
“Cows were eating grass in the field next to the farmhouse.”
2nounsubjectA subject area, or an area where a force acts.
“She's an expert in the field of children's medicine.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
field is an open area or subject.
Old English feld comes from a root meaning flat or spread out — the same root as Latin planus and English floor. A field is named for being level, which is what distinguishes it from woodland.
Proto-Indo-European
*pleth₂-
Proto-Indo-European
*pleh₂- — field, plain
Proto-Germanic
*felþuz — field
Proto-West Germanic
*felþu — field
Old English
feld — field
Middle English
feld
English, today
field
Built from
From Middle English feld, feeld (“field”), from Old English feld (“field”), from Proto-West Germanic felþu (“field”), from Proto-Germanic felþuz (“field”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European pleh₂- (“field, plain”) or pleth₂- (“flat”) (with schwebeablaut). 2 Cognate with Scots feld, feild (“field”), frr fial, fälj (“field”), stq Fäild (“field”), West Frisian fjild (“field”), Dutch veld (“field”), German and lb Feld (“field”), wym fald (“field”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk felt (“field”), Swedish fält (“field”), Finnish pelto (“field”), Asturian - and roa-leo platu (“plate”), an - and Spanish plato (“plate”), Catalan plat (“plate”), French plat (“dish”), Galician -, mwl -, and Portuguese prato (“plate”), Italian piatto (“plate”), Latin plattus (“flattened”), Greek πλατύς (“wide, broad”). Doublet of plate. Related also to Middle English flat (“flat”), Old English folde (“earth, land, territory”), Old English folm (“palm of the hand”). More at flat, fold.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA