noun
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a person who works in or takes care of a garden as an occupation or pastime
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any bowerbird of the genus Amblyornis
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of gardener
1250–1300; Middle English < Old North French gardinier ( Old French jardinier ). See garden, -er 2
Explanation
A person whose hobby or job is growing flowers in a garden is called a gardener. If you want homegrown flowers and veggies, get to know a gardener. If you grow vegetables professionally, you're called a farmer, but if you design, tend, or care for a flower garden, you're a gardener. Planting anything on a small scale, in your own backyard, also makes you a gardener. The word gardener was a common last name starting in the 13th century, from the Old French jardineor, and the Old North French gardin, "kitchen garden or orchard."
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:
When she and her gardener sheet-mulched the front yard with cardboard Amazon boxes she had collected from her neighbors in October, one neighbor joked that it looked ready for Halloween.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
The bomb had been spotted by Ewan Barnard, a biochemistry student at the University of East Anglia, who was working as a gardener.
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
And it seems as though no royal event is complete without the presence of the famous gardener Titchmarsh, who the King must see more often than his own bodyguard.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
I forget about it, given I am not a gardener.
From Salon ● May 9, 2026
You want to be an engineer, a computer programmer, a secretary, a doctor, a lawyer, a caterer, a gardener, a construction worker, or whatever.
From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall
“But I’ve met so many people because I’m out here every day. Other gardeners are curious and often ask me, ‘What’s that interesting yellow plant?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
Even home gardeners might dig it, as they contemplate buying chickens.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
He is also meeting the community of volunteers, gardeners and growers who use the allotment space to grow fresh produce as well as forging social connections.
From BBC ● May 21, 2026
For only the second time, a ban on gnomes has been lifted this year by the Royal Horticultural Society, an opportunity that seemed to have been grasped by gardeners with both tiny ceramic hands.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
Most depended on raised-field agriculture, in which farmers grow crops on flat, artificially constructed surfaces created for the same reason that home gardeners grow vegetables on raised beds.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
