ranch
Americannoun
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ranches
plural
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an establishment maintained for raising livestock under range conditions.
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Chiefly Western U.S. and Canada. a large farm used primarily to raise one kind of crop or animal.
a mink ranch.
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a dude ranch.
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the persons employed or living on a ranch.
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I’ll have the small salad, with ranch on the side.
verb (used without object)
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ranches,
present (3rd person singular)
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ranched,
past participle, past
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ranching
present participle
noun
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a large tract of land, esp one in North America, together with the necessary personnel, buildings, and equipment, for rearing livestock, esp cattle
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-
any large farm for the rearing of a particular kind of livestock or crop
a mink ranch
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the buildings, land, etc, connected with it
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verb
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(intr) to manage or run a ranch
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(tr) to raise (animals) on or as if on a ranch
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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ranchsimple
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ranchessimple
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have ranchedperfect
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has ranchedperfect
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am ranchingprogressive
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are ranchingprogressive
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is ranchingprogressive
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have been ranchingperfect progressive
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has been ranchingperfect progressive
Past
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ranchedsimple
-
had ranchedperfect
-
was ranchingprogressive
-
were ranchingprogressive
-
had been ranchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ranch
An Americanism dating from 1800–10; from Spanish rancho “farm, cattle farm, ranch”; see origin at rancho
Explanation
A ranch is a large farm that raises animals, generally grazing animals like cows or sheep. If you dream of raising big, strange-looking birds, you could decide to have an emu or an ostrich ranch instead. Ranches raise animals for meat, and in the case of sheep or alpacas, for wool. When you work on a ranch, you can say that you ranch. A ranch is also a type of single-story, simple house architecturally influenced by the western, informal style of working ranches, which first appeared in the 1950s in the Western US. Ranch comes from the Spanish rancho, first "group of people who eat together" and later "group of farm huts."
Vocabulary lists containing ranch
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The ranch is nestled in a corner of Nebraska that's home to rolling green hills under sweeping Midwestern skies, the landscape dotted with grain silos and feedlots alongside fields and fields of bovines.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Dobbertin, who spent years in Thailand, created her own crunchwrap featuring a tortilla wrapped around marinated chicken in a khao soi coconut curry with avocado basil ranch and crisp wheat noodles for added crunch.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Animal services officials said the bird was moved to a private ranch in Northern California on Tuesday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
For me, this is often cottage cheese ranch or a punchy vinaigrette — mostly because Future Me is considerably more enthusiastic about eating vegetables when there is something good to drag them through.
From Salon ● Sep. 22, 2026
He made our beds out of fence posts he got for helping Tin Harper put up a fence on his ranch.
From "Worth" by A. LaFaye
Ken Boulay, the CEO of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, said it’s time to move forward and imagine what the park could be like without cattle and private ranches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Watch the video above to explore how the myth of the American cowboy became a global obsession, from the ranches of Oklahoma to a Tokyo honky-tonk.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
As those ranches disappeared, so did the local economies that made America’s cattle country strong.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
Some dairy farms send calves out to third-party calf ranches for rearing.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
She knew they'd spent most of their lives working on farms and ranches and hadn't had much schooling.
From "Holes" by Louis Sachar
This weekend, the delegation from Hidden Valley has been mobilized to the New York area—because anything can be ranched.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Park visitors, much to their delight, often encounter the horses while driving or hiking in the rolling, colorful Badlands where a young, future President Theodore Roosevelt hunted and ranched in the 1880s.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 25, 2024
These ancient wetlands had been plundered for timber, then ranched, and finally acquired by the state in the 1970s to nurture back to life.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2021
When Letseoma was growing up in this house, her father had farmed and ranched and had owned horses, cattle, sheep, and chickens.
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 2021
As Grandpa got older he ranched less and farmed more, until one day he stopped farming.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
That was the number of ranching families whose property was on the path needed for “Running Fence.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
Others at the town hall, however, expressed fury that the two remaining ranching families were now trying to upend the deal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
The show depicts the power struggles between patriarch John Dutton III, his children, the locals, and the outsiders seeking to change their bucolic ranching way of life.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Making beef affordable again will only happen by rebuilding the domestic U.S. ranching base.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
The freezing-cold winter had killed three-quarters of all the cattle that roamed the Badlands, and ranching turned out to be a money-losing venture for him.
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
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