Forms: 4 vinȝerd, 6 -yard(e, vinȝard, -yearde, 6 vyny(e)arde, wynyard, 7 viniard; 4–5 vyneȝerd(e, 5 -ȝorde, -ye(e)rd, 6 -yearde; 4 vineȝard, 5 -yerd, 6 -y(e)arde, 5– vineyard; Sc. 5 wyne-, 6 wineȝarde, wyneȝard, -yaird. [f. VINE sb. + YARD sb., after the earlier wineyard, OE. wínʓeard.]
1. A piece of ground in which grape-vines are cultivated; a plantation of vines.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter civ. 31. He smate þaire vynȝerdis & þaire fige trese.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxli. (Bodl. MS.). Þis tree … is beste in gardines to close hem wiþ and vineȝardes.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 337. In þis lond is plente of hony and of mylk and of wyn, and nouȝt of vyneȝerdes.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 66. A husbandman … hyryd men to his vyneȝorde for labour.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, f vj. A good man … whiche had an Aker of a vine yerd.
1535. Coverdale, Job xxiv. 6. They … gather the grapes out of his vynyarde, whom they haue oppressed by violence.
c. 1585. [R. Browne], Answ. Cartwright, 45. Where no yarde is, there may be vynes growing, but there can bee no vineyarde.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 171. There is a right learned man that feareth lest hee have inconsideratly put this down in writing, as if this land were unfit for vineyards.
1661. J. Childrey, Brit. Bacon., 71. This Shire is very full of Vineyards.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 73. The good Grapes, which Compose part of our Gard’ning, and the common Grapes that grow in Vineyards.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), IV. 449. The vineyards begin to bear two years after their planting; and continue in heart fifty or sixty years.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. 211. When they [baboons] set about robbing an orchard or a vineyard,… they do not go singly to work.
1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 218. We sought the elevated Cathedral, which stands without the town in the midst of vineyards.
1840. Hood, Up Rhine, 162. I was rather disappointed at Bonn, by the first sight of what sounds so poetically, a vineyard.
1878. Emerson, Misc., Fort. Republic, Wks. (Bohn), III. 387. The wine merchant has … also, I fear, his debts to the chemist as well as to the vineyard.
b. fig. A sphere of action or labor, esp. of an elevated or spiritual character.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxvii. (Machor), 1293. Trawale þar-for all thi mycht in goddis wyne-ȝarde for to vyne feile folk þat bundine ar with syne.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 98. Þis housbonde is God, and þis vyneȝerde is his Chirche.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 51. This noble and Catholyke prince … whom God raysed for a Capitayne … vnder whose banner they myght ouercome theyr enemies and pourge his vineyarde from suche wycked weedes.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. 467. Mr. Ninian … was a faithful labourer in the Lordes vinȝard, ernist, and bissie.
1618. Baret (title), An Hipponomie; or the Vineyard of Horsemanship deuided into Three Bookes.
1628. in Foster, Eng. Factories India (1909), III. 295. Their principall merchants and factors, who are indeed the true labourers of their viniard, and th’ other, if rightlie considred, no other then carriers.
1702. Clarendon’s Hist. Reb., I. Pref. p. xviii. Every Man … that had laboured all the heat of the day in the Vine-yard … was not … recompenced immediately according to their Merit.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., To Sir W. Phillips, 10 June. The vineyard of methodism lies before you.
1791. Hampson, Mem. J. Wesley, III. 110. The assiduity of the labourers in this vineyard was the chief visible cause of their success.
1804. Med. Jrnl., XII. 12. Sincerely wishing you success in your labours in the vineyard of humanity.
1905. G. Thorne, Lost Cause, x. The League ’ll go on safe enough, there’ll always be labourers in the vineyard.
¶ c. = VINEA. Obs.–1
1650. R. Stapylton, Strada’s Low C. Wars, IX. 58. The pioners, working under long and thick boards, in the form of a Tortois, covered with raw hides to secure them from Granadoes (anciently called Vineyards, and Galleries) to enter the ditch.
2. attrib. and Comb., as vineyard-culture, -dresser, -ground, etc.; † vineyard leek, a wild species of leek.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 102. The wild or wynyard leke is more hurtfull for the stomack then the comon leke.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 1121. The ministers of the Church are sometime called souldiers or vineyard-keepers.
1636. Prynne, Unbish. Tim. (1661), 111. Like as an higher place is made for the Vineyardkeeper, to keep the Vineyard, so an higher place also is made for the Bishops.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Declam. Def. Gaming, Wks. (1709), III. 146. Bacchus was made a God, a Vine-yard-keeper [etc.].
1731. P. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Vitis, I have seen in one Place in this Vineyard-Plot great Pieces of old Vines replanted after the aforesaid manner.
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb. (title-page), A Method of introducing a Sort of Vineyard-Culture into the Corn-Fields. Ibid., vii. 62. Without which they could not give it [sc. corn] the Vineyard-Hoeing.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., s.v. Porrum, The wild vineyard leek.
c. 1820. S. Rogers, Italy (1839), 41. As I rambled through thy vineyard-ground. Ibid., 223. When on a vineyard-hill we lay concealed.
1848. Clough, Amours de Voy., II. 122. And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes.
1849. K. H. Digby, Compitum, II. 361. Another tradition prescribes, that Pope Urban I. should be painted with grapes and a vine, being the patron of vineyardmen.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl. 928/1. A French double vineyard plow.
Hence Vineyarded a., enclosed as a vineyard; covered with vineyards; Vineyarding, the cultivation of vineyards; vine-growing; Vineyardist, one who engages in vine-growing.
1820. Keats, Isabella, xvii. In that land inspired, Paled in and *vineyarded from beggar-spies.
1886. Mrs. Flor. Caddy, Footsteps Jeanne D’Arc, 83. One now walks from the train to the town by the side of vineyarded hill-slopes.
1870. Congregationalist, 19 May (Cent.). Profits of *vineyarding in California.
1851. Southern Press (Washington City), 22 Nov., 1/2. I still unite with many French *vineyardists, who think, like myself, that this grape with a flat and medicinal taste, is good for nothing, neither for making wine nor for the table.
1868. Rep U.S. Comm. Agric. (1869), 267. The necessity of depending mainly upon professional vineyardists.
1897. L. H. Bailey, Princ. Fruit-growing, 291. Careful vineyardists are able to continue the practice [or girdling] year after year without apparent injury to the vine.
