toft
Americannoun
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the site of a house and outbuildings.
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a house site and its adjoining arable land.
noun
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a homestead
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an entire holding, consisting of a homestead and the attached arable land
Etymology
Origin of toft
before 1050; Middle English, late Old English < ?
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.
Each building is called a toft, a Norse-derived word for farmhouse or homestead.
From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 2015
I also feel very great doubt about names taken from places ending in by, thorp, and toft, in Lincolnshire and the ancient Denelaga, as being Scandinavian, and given at a distinctly later period.
From Surnames as a Science by Robert Ferguson
Toft, toft, n. a hillock: a messuage with right of common.—ns.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
A toft," says Dr. Whitaker, "is a homestead in a village, so called from the small tufts of maple, elm, ash, and other wood, with which dwelling-houses were anciently overhung.
From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3 by Henry Hallam
And when all was done they went back to the toft before the rock-chamber, where the elder had opened the loads, and had taken meal thence, and was making cakes at the fire.
From The Well at the World's End: a tale by William Morris
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.
