Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Farm?

\Farm\, n. [OE. ferme rent, lease, F. ferme, LL. firma, fr. L. firmus firm, fast, firmare to make firm or fast. See {Firm}, a. & n.] 1. The rent of land, -- originally paid by reservation of part of its products. [Obs.] 2. The term or tenure of a lease of land for cultivation; a leasehold. [Obs.] It is great willfulness in landlords to make any longer farms to their tenants. --Spenser. 3. The land held under lease and by payment of rent for the purpose of cultivation. 4. Any tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes, under the management of a tenant or the owner. Note: In English the ideas of a lease, a term, and a rent, continue to be in a great degree inseparable, even from the popular meaning of a farm, as they are entirely so from the legal sense. --Burrill. 5. A district of country leased (or farmed) out for the collection of the revenues of government. The province was devided into twelve farms. --Burke. 6. (O. Eng. Law) A lease of the imposts on particular goods; as, the sugar farm, the silk farm. Whereas G. H. held the farm of sugars upon a rent of 10,000 marks per annum. --State Trials (1196).
\Farm\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Farmed}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Farming}.] 1. To lease or let for an equivalent, as land for a rent; to yield the use of to proceeds. We are enforced to farm our royal realm. --Shak. 2. To give up to another, as an estate, a business, the revenue, etc., on condition of receiving in return a percentage of what it yields; as, to farm the taxes. To farm their subjects and their duties toward these. --Burke. 3. To take at a certain rent or rate. 4. To devote (land) to agriculture; to cultivate, as land; to till, as a farm. {To farm let}, {To let to farm}, to lease on rent.
\Farm\, v. i. To engage in the business of tilling the soil; to labor as a farmer.