stockyard

American  

[stok-yahrd] / ˈstɒkˌyɑrd /

noun

1. an enclosure with pens, sheds, etc., connected with a slaughterhouse, railroad, market, etc., for the temporary housing of cattle, sheep, swine, or horses.

2. a yard for livestock.

---

stockyard British  

/ ˈstɒkˌjɑːd /

noun

1. a large yard with pens or covered buildings where farm animals are assembled, sold, etc

---

Etymology

Origin of stockyard

First recorded in 1795–1805; stock + yard ²

Example Sentences

The price of the grilled rib-eye might have you choking, but the $90 stockyard — er, platter — of blushing beef, sliced for easy feasting, could easily feed a bunkhouse.

From Washington Post • Feb. 4, 2022

That’s how he started as a photography-obsessed teenager growing up near a stockyard in Omaha, and decades later it’s where he once again finds himself.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2021

Merwin examined his own mind in “Plane” and found it “infinitely divided and hopeless/like a stockyard seen from above.”

From Washington Times • Mar. 15, 2019

Grandin sees the plant layout as she speaks, adding the hand-cranked submarine doors gleaned from war movies, the pumps from every stockyard and farm she’s seen since she was a child.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 14, 2013

It was here, in what Chicagoans called a “streetcar” suburb, that stockyard supervisors chose to settle, as did officials of companies headquartered in the skyscrapers of the Loop.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

Related Words

• abattoir