turbary

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English

WOTD – 5 December 2024

Etymology

Pieces of peat cut from a turbary (sense 1) in South Uist in the Western Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Inherited from Middle English turbarie (“place where peat is dug, peat bog; substance obtained from such a place, peat”),[1] from Anglo-Norman turbarie, turberie, and Old French torberie, tourbarie, turbarie, from Medieval Latin turbāria, from turba (“turf”) (whence Old French tourbe)[2][3] + Latin -āria (suffix forming abstract nouns). Turba is derived from Proto-West Germanic *turb (“peat; turf”); from Proto-Germanic *turbz (“peat; turf”), from Proto-Indo-European *derbʰ- (“grass; tuft”). Doublet of turf.

Pronunciation

Noun

turbary (countable and uncountable, plural turbaries) (soil science)

  2. (uncountable) Peatland from which peat or turf may be cut for fuel; (countable) a piece of such land; a peat bog.
    • 1970, Heðin Brú [pseudonym; Hans Jacob Jacobsen], chapter 10, in John F. West, transl., The Old Man and His Sons, London: Saqi, published 2013, →ISBN:
      But remember this, it doesn't pay to set yourself against me, because I own both the infield and the turbary in the village, and without my leave, you'll get neither milk nor fuel.
  3. (uncountable, by extension)
    1. (law) In full common of turbary: the right to cut peat or turf from peatland on a common or another person's land.
      Hypernym: profit à prendre
      • 1766, William Blackstone, “Of Incorporeal Hereditaments”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book II (Of the Rights of Things), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 34:
        Common of piſcary is a liberty of fiſhing in another man's waters; as common of turbary is a liberty of digging turf upon another's ground. […] All theſe bear a reſemblance to common of paſture in many reſpects; thought in one point they go much farther: common of paſture being only a right of feeding on the herbage and veſture of the ſoil, which renews annually; but common of turbary, and the reſt, are a right of carrying away the very ſoil itſelf.
    2. (obsolete) Material extracted from peatland; peat.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “turbārīe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “turbary, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2024.
  3. ^ “turbary, n.”, in Collins English Dictionary.

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