orchard
Americannoun
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orchards
plural
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an area of land devoted to the cultivation of fruit or nut trees.
-
a group or collection of such trees.
noun
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an area of land devoted to the cultivation of fruit trees
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a collection of fruit trees especially cultivated
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of orchard
before 900; Middle English orch ( i ) ard, Old English orceard; replacing ortyard, Middle English ortyerd, Old English ortigeard (compare Gothic aurtigards garden), equivalent to ort- (combining form akin to wort 2; later identified with Latin hortus garden) + geard yard 2
Explanation
An orchard is a tree garden. If you visit New England in autumn, make sure to stop by a local apple orchard and pick a few baskets to take home. From the Old English orceard blossomed our modern-day spelling of orchard, a noun meaning “fruit farm.” But you can also use the word figuratively to refer to something filled with treats or precious content. The US Congregational minister, Henry Ward Beecher, was famous for having proclaimed, “A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”
Vocabulary lists containing orchard
The Balcony Scene from "Romeo and Juliet"
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"Mending Wall," by Robert Frost
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"Water at Work"
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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:
There was no cellphone signal in Pancho’s orchard, so Óscar and one of his uncles drove there to look.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2026
"We would normally harvest 20-30 tonnes of apples here," he tells me, walking through one orchard.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
The 75-year-old farmer's eyes filled with tears as he walked through his orchard in the village of Vosketap, where a breeze from snowcapped Mount Ararat, across the border in Turkey, dispelled the summer heat.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
Mora said that, at the end of the day, some people even came to the orchard to pick up the fruit that had been tossed to the side.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026
The house sat behind a small orchard, and beyond it, a barn was slowly falling down.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
Neil MacDonald manages more than 1,000 acres of cider orchards across Somerset.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Somerset's famous cider orchards have been 'decimated' by the long summer drought, producers say.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Aquifer levels have continued to drop as corporate farms and investors have planted vast almond and pistachio orchards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
She said it’s unfair that her family is charged the same pumping fees as the owners of giant almond and pistachio orchards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
I married and had children, and with work and God’s will I prospered, so that I am able today to enjoy my children, my grandchildren, my orchards and my gardens in peace and comfort.
From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
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.
