Obs. or dial. Forms: 1 ierþ, irþ, yrþ, earþ, ærþ, 4–5 erþe, 6 earthe, 6– earth. [OE. *ęrþ, WS. ięrþ str. fem. (OTeut. type *arþi-z) f. *ar-, root of OE. ęrian, EAR v.1 to plow + suffix as in BIRTH.
1. The action of plowing; a plowing. In OE. also ‘ploughed land’ and ‘produce of arable land, a crop’ (Bosw.-Toller).
c. 890. K. Ælfred, Bæda, IV. xxviii. (Bosw.). Ða ʓeorn ðær sona up ʓenihtsumlic yrþ and wæstm.
a. 1000. Rect. Sing. Pers., in Thorpe, Laws (1840), 189. Feola syndan folcʓerihtu … ben-feorm for ripe, ʓyt-feorm for yrðe.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. xviii. (MS.). Þe more gardyne was of twenty days erþe oþer erynge [1495 erthe ar eryenge].
1552. Huloet, Earth or earynge of Lande in some place taken for tyllage of lande, as the first earth … first plowynge styrringe.
1573. Tusser, Husb., xxxv. (1878), 84. Such lande as ye breake vp for barlie to sowe, two earthes at the least er ye sowe it bestowe.
a. 1813. Vancouver, in A. Young, Agric. Essex, I. 203. One or two deep clean ploughings is all that can … be required … and one or both of these earths, under certain circumstances, had better be dispensed with.
2. The soil turned up by the plow on the edge of the furrow.
1765. A. Dickson, Treat. Agric., 275. If the earths of the furrows are set on their edge, the harrows turn them back.
