Orchard

How to spell orchard

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce orchard

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does orchard mean?

1. nounA piece of land planted with fruit or nut trees.

Orchard in a sentence

• The farm sold cider pressed from apples in its own orchard.

• Every autumn the family picked plums in the small orchard behind the house.

Where does orchard come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Orchard comes from the Old English word ortgeard, which was an enclosed plot for growing fruit and herbs. The first part, ort, is thought to derive from the Latin hortus, meaning 'garden', the same root that gives us 'horticulture'. The second part, geard, simply meant 'yard' or 'enclosure', and it is the direct ancestor of the modern English word 'yard'. Over the centuries the spelling smoothed from ortgeard to orceard and finally to the familiar orchard, while the meaning narrowed from any enclosed growing plot to specifically a piece of land planted with fruit trees. The hidden 'h' after the 'c' is the chief spelling trap, since the word is pronounced with a soft 'ch' sound that does not obviously call for that letter.

How the word is built

• orch- (from Old English ort-, garden, related to Latin hortus 'garden')
• -ard (from geard, yard or enclosure)