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   farm

   /fɑːm/

   noun

   • 1. an area of land and its buildings, used for growing crops and rearing animals: "a farm of 100 acres"
   • ▪ a farmhouse: "a half-timbered farm"
   • ▪ a place for breeding a particular type of animal or producing a specified crop: "a fish farm"
   • ▪ a place devoted to producing or promoting something: "an energy farm"
   • ▪ a collection of networked computers used together to perform a task too great for a single computer to undertake: "we are becoming dependent on companies with huge server farms"

   verb

   • 1. make one's living by growing crops or keeping livestock: "he has farmed organically for years" Similar be a farmerpractise farmingcultivate/till/work the landtill the soilrear livestockdo agricultural work
   • ▪ use (land) for growing crops and rearing animals: "marshes are being drained in order to farm the land" Similar cultivatebring under cultivationtillworkploughdigplant
   • ▪ breed or grow (a type of livestock or crop) commercially: "ostriches are farmed in South Africa and Australia" Similar growcultivateraiseplanttendbring onharvestbreedrearkeep
   • 2. allow someone to collect and keep the revenues from (a tax) on payment of a fee: historical "the customs had been farmed to the collector for a fixed sum"

   Word Origin Middle English: from Old French ferme, from medieval Latin firma ‘fixed payment’, from Latin firmare ‘fix, settle’ (in medieval Latin ‘contract for’), from firmus ‘constant, firm’; compare with firm2. The noun originally denoted a fixed annual amount payable as rent or tax; this is reflected in farm (sense 2 of the verb), which later gave rise to farm out meaning ‘to subcontract’. The noun came to denote a lease, and, in the early 16th century, land leased for farming. The verb sense ‘grow crops or keep livestock’ dates from the early 19th century.

   Derivatives

   • 1. farmable adjective

   Scrabble Points: 9

   • F

     4

   • A

     1

   • R

     1

   • M

     3

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