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farmer

[ fahr-mer ]
/ ˈfɑr mər /
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noun
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.
  1. a variety of twenty-one played with a 45-card pack, the object being to obtain cards having a total worth of 16.
  2. the dealer in this game.
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Origin of farmer

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, -er2

usage note for farmer

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.”

OTHER WORDS FROM farmer

farm·er·like, adjectivepro·farm·er, adjectiveun·der·farm·er, noun

Words nearby farmer

farm belt, farm-bike, farm bloc, Farm Bureau, farmed, farmer, farmer cheese, farmerette, Farmer, Fannie, farmer-general, farmer in the dell

Other definitions for farmer (2 of 2)

Farmer
[ fahr-mer ]
/ ˈfɑr mər /
noun
Fannie (Mer·ritt) [mer-it], /ˈmɛr ɪt/, 1857–1915, U.S. authority on cooking.
James (Leonard), 1920–1999, U.S. civil rights leader; founder of CORE.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Words related to farmer

grower, laborer, peasant, producer, rancher, agriculturalist, agronomist, breeder, clodhopper, cob, cropper, cultivator, feeder, gardener, gleaner, harvester, homesteader, horticulturist, planter, plower

How to use farmer in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for farmer (1 of 2)

farmer
/ (ˈfɑːmə) /
noun
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

British Dictionary definitions for farmer (2 of 2)

Farmer
/ (ˈfɑːmə) /
noun
John. ?1565–1605, English madrigal composer and organist
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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