a person who farms; person who operates a farm or cultivates land.
Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. an unsophisticated or ignorant person, especially one from a rural area.
Archaic. a person who undertakes some service, as the care of children or poor people, at a fixed price.
Archaic. a person who undertakes the collection of taxes, duties, etc., paying a fixed sum for the privilege of retaining them.
Cards.
a variety of twenty-one played with a 45-card pack, the object being to obtain cards having a total worth of 16.
the dealer in this game.
Fannie (Merritt) 1857–1915, U.S. authority on cooking.
James (Leonard), 1920–1999, U.S. civil rights leader; founder of CORE.
a person who operates or manages a farm
a person who obtains the right to collect and retain a tax, rent, etc, or operate a franchise for a specified period on payment of a fee
a person who looks after a child for a fixed sum
The word farmer has been used as a derogatory term for an ignorant or unsophisticated person, especially one from a rural area (whether an actual farmer or not), since the 1800's. A couple of citations illustrate this. One early example is found in Artie by George Ade (1896): “I may be a farmer, but it takes better people than you to sling the bull con into me,” uttered by the title character Artie, who is a young office worker and not a farmer. A book review in The Guardian (August 21, 2001) shows a more recent use: “I worked in a couple of those bars where you hustle champagne. They were businessmen, they weren't naive farmers.”
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English fermer, fermour, from Anglo-French, Old French fermier “collector of revenue,” from Medieval Latin firmārius “one who holds lands or tenement for a fixed number of years or for life”; see origin at farm, -er 2
A farmer is a person who runs and works on a farm. Some farmers raise a variety of food crops, while others keep dairy cows and sell their milk. Farmers work in some aspect of agriculture, growing vegetables, grains, or fruit; or raising animals for milk, eggs, or meat. A small farmer manages a relatively small piece of land, often growing different crops and keeping hens for their eggs, for example. Some farmers own their farms, while others rent the land on which they work. In the 14th century, a farmer was "one who collects taxes," from the Old French fermier, "lease holder."
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Ms. Crabapple’s great-grandfather, Samuel Rothbort, was a Russian-born Bundist who, after tangling with local thugs, immigrated to the U.S. and became a painter and chicken farmer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Their arguably biggest get was Graham Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer who was challenging Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2026
Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, rocketed to the top of the Democratic field with a message of plain-spoken populism.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
An oyster farmer and Marine veteran, Platner had entered the race to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins as an outsider and was seen as riding an anti-establishment wave of support.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
“The farmer could never relax,” she went on.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Farmer Gareth Wyn Jones, whose land borders the Conwy Mountain, said he had "never seen anything of that scale".
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Party wings are another reliable crowd-pleaser: Farmer Focus wings come pre-split, grill quickly and only need a coating of Tabañero BBQ sauce near the end so it can caramelize and get sticky.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026
FAO has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, with the agency highlighting how "unrecognised" their vital role is in supporting food security.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Farmer trade groups, which have largely sided with Bayer throughout the Roundup litigation, said the Supreme Court ruling would help ensure pesticides remain available.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
Farmer had a deeper explanation about sorcery, and he liked to engage me in conversations about it.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
In early June, it approved support for farmers, including subsidies for greenhouse exports.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
DST, which also helped conserve fuel during the first world war, was unpopular with farmers and was repealed after the war.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Armenian farmers, he said, should focus more on quality than yield to carve out a place in alternative markets.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
He is best known for developing the "ice stupa" - an artificial cone-shaped glacier inspired by Buddhist stupas - that stores water during winter and releases it in late spring, when farmers need it most.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Some farmers, like Pa, had old pickup trucks, but the Saylors were the only folks who had a car just for riding around in.
From "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
