barnyard
Americannoun
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barnyards
plural
adjective
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of, relating to, or typical of a barnyard.
barnyard noises; simple paintings of barnyard life.
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indecent; smutty; vulgar.
His barnyard humor made us all blush.
noun
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a yard adjoining a barn, in which farm animals are kept
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(modifier) belonging to or characteristic of a barnyard
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(modifier) crude or earthy
barnyard humour
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of barnyard
Explanation
A barnyard is a fenced-in area on a farm, usually next to a barn, which sometimes contains goats, chickens, or other farm animals. You can also call a barnyard a "farmyard." On many farms, animals are moved throughout the day from one area to another — in a barn to be milked, or in a pasture to graze on grass, for example. A barnyard gives farmers a place close to farm buildings where animals can be kept safely. In E.B. White's beloved children's book "Charlotte's Web," Wilbur the pig lives out most of his happy life in a barnyard on a small farm.
Vocabulary lists containing barnyard
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:
Children ages 4 to 8 will think they know what’s coming from the placid, old-timey barnyard setting, where the horse says “neigh” and the cow says “moo.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
Instead, he draws from the writer’s letters and diaries, as well as the longer-form works like the barnyard political allegory “Animal Farm” and the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025
One article said, “A pop-up barnyard would be less inappropriate for the neighborhood.”
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2025
I learned the many shades of stink — from barnyard funk to gym sock to overripe fruit — and how to spot the difference.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2025
Watching him, Dede was reminded of his fighting cocks which, in the barnyard, appeared to be just plain roosters.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
At any given moment, there are as many as 12,500 Duroc hogs snorting around the barnyards of Imani Farms, a pig farm in southwestern Ontario.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2022
Montreal, with its own private atmosphere of celebration and voluptuous sorrow, standing as it does alongside the snowbound barnyards of Vermont, the silent forests of Maine.
From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2018
For example, when Bouckaert wanted “funky” aromas, such as the smell of barnyards or horse blankets, but without the usual accompanying fruity notes, he tried four of the lab’s strains that showed some promise.
From Nature ● Jul. 25, 2016
Thousands of basketball-obsessed kids, in schoolyards and backyards and barnyards around the country, may be trying a new kind of shot come Tuesday morning.
From Time ● Apr. 8, 2014
When the fields yielded little game, they worked the barnyards and farm gardens.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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.
