yard

Yard comes from Old English ġeard, meaning yard, garden, fence, or enclosure, which traces back through Proto-West Germanic *gard to Proto-Germanic *gardaz. Further back lies the Proto-Indo-European root *gʰerdʰ-, meaning 'to enclose.'

The word moved from Old English ġeard through Middle English yerd before settling into the modern spelling and sense of yard, keeping its core idea of an enclosed space the whole way.

Yard is a doublet of garden, garth, and gord, all descending from the same root meaning 'to enclose.' Cognates across languages carry the same enclosure idea, from Dutch gaard to German Garten to Russian город (górod, 'town').