Chiefly British. a country house or large farmhouse with its various farm buildings (usually in house names): the grange of a gentleman-farmer.
Bulkeley Grange;
the grange of a gentleman-farmer.
(in historical use) an isolated farm, with its farmhouse and nearby buildings, belonging to monks or nuns or to a feudal lord.
the nunnery's grange at Tisbury.
the Grange, Granger Movement
Archaic. a barn or granary.
a farm, esp a farmhouse or country house with its various outbuildings
history an outlying farmhouse in which a religious establishment or feudal lord stored crops and tithes in kind
archaic a granary or barn
an association of farmers that strongly influenced state legislatures in the late 19th century
a lodge of this association
1150–1200; Middle English gra(u)nge “barn,” from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin grānica (unattested), equivalent to Latin grān(i)um grain + -ica, feminine of -icus -ic
Use the noun grange to mean a country farm house. A grange usually has outbuildings, like barns and sheds, which are often built onto the main grange house. On an old-fashioned, small farm, the farming family lives in the grange house, while they work on the surrounding land and in attached barns or workshops. You're more likely to hear the word grange in Britain than in the United States these days. A clue about its origins are found in gran: when you see that root, you'll know a word has something to do with grain, or granum in Latin.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Clark’s mother, Sally, who also worked for a local mill, is an artist and musician and the two played together in a group called Sagebrush and Satin, gigging around local fairs and grange halls.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 3, 2024
It’s an old town built on what was originally grange, or field lands, held by Dublin churches.
From The New Yorker ● May 22, 2017
The place was imposing only in comparison to the buildings that surrounded it; perhaps it was a grange hall once, or seat of government.
From Slate ● Mar. 6, 2017
Such textiles turn up in performance spaces, fraternal organizations, grange halls, government offices and schoolhouses.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2015
But as he was going home to the grange he met an old woman who led a golden goose by a string.
From Tales from the Fjeld A Second Series of Popular Tales by Asbj?rnsen, P. Chr.
The child was one of 23 at Outwood Grange Academy in Wakefield who spent more than 20% of their days in the booths in one of the past two academic years.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
Losing Catherine to Edgar, the heir of Thrushcross Grange, prompts Heathcliff, the perpetual outsider, to vow vengeance; he maneuvers to gain financial control of both houses with the aim of destroying each one’s inhabitants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Catherine Earnshaw, raised in the “disorderly, comfortless” gothic abode of Wuthering Heights, is seduced by the refinement of the neighboring Thrushcross Grange, “a splendid place carpeted with crimson.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
The Reform candidate also won Sweyne Park and the Grange on Rochford.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
The Old Grange on the west side had been knocked down, and its place taken by rows of tarred sheds.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Attached to the abbey of Longchamps, near Paris, is one of the best-preserved granges in France, with walls in stone and internally divided into three aisles in oak timber of extremely fine construction.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 3 "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses" by Various
They are of particular value for securing collections of books on special topics for the use of granges, churches, and study clubs of all sorts.
From The Farmer and His Community by Sanderson, Dwight
Girls like Cassandra, shut up in moated granges a dozen miles from the nearest anywhere.
From Lady Cassandra by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
Labor chiefs fail to organize unions or granges among them because they simply will not stick together.
From Our Southern Highlanders by Kephart, Horace
Convent business, however, frequently took the officials further afield than outlying granges and they undertook journeys hardly less often than did the head of the house.
From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Power, Eileen
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.
