dial. Forms: 7–9 lynchet(t, 9 linchard, 8– linchet. [f. LINCH sb.2; perh. by confusion with lanchet, LANDSHARD.]
1. A strip of green land between two pieces of plowed land.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 71. A Lynchett, a green balk to divide lands.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1752), 67. There happened in this ground to be a linchet ploughed up in the winter.
1863. Barnes, Dorset Gloss., Linchet or Linch, Lynchet or Lynch,… the strip of green ground between two ploughed ledges.
1893. Wiltshire Gloss., Linch, Linchet,… Linchard, &c.
2. A slope or terrace along the face of a chalk down. (Cf. LINCH sb.2)
1797. [see LINCH sb.2].
1844. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., V. I. 169. The parings from road-sides, old banks, and linchets, ant-hills, &c., are burnt.
1888. T. Hardy, Wessex Tales (1889), 26. The ‘lynchets,’ or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards. Ibid. (1898), Wessex Poems, 135. That Highway the Icen, Which trails its pale riband down Wessex O’er lynchet and lea.
