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yard ~ yard

[the same pronunciation]

“Yard” (noun) is ‘a unit for measuring length, (written abbreviation ‘yd’), which is equal to three feet or 0.9144 metre; (with ‘cube’ or ‘square’) a unit of measuring volume;  (in financial markets) used for one billion units of a currency; (on ships or boats) a slender rod or wooden pole (spar) tied across a mast to support a sail’,

e.g.

The post office is only a hundred yards away from our office.

The proverb says: ‘Give him a yard, he will take a mile!’

Sailors must know how to tie the halyard to the yard, and the luff sail corner to the mast foot.

The financier said that he was the buyer of a yard of dollars!      [i.e. in the foreign exchange market he bought a billion dollars]

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“Yard” (noun) is ‘an open space or ground at the front or back of a building; the open area, usually covered with grass or with some small plants around a house; an area next to or surrounded by a building or group of buildings used for some special purpose, business, any activity, etc.; an enclosed place (pen) for domestic animals (live stock) or poultry; a railway centre where trains are made, repaired/serviced, and changed from one railway track to another; a place where wild deer, moose, etc. get together for grazing during winter season; {rare usage, as a verb, it is ‘to put something or some animal in a yard, used with ‘up’}’,

Some common words used with ‘yard’ (Notice that some compound word combinations take space between them, and some are written as one word without any space.): back yard, front yard; prison yard; builder’s yard; timber yard; navy yard; railroad yard, railway yard, marshalling yard (railway yard); shipbuilding yard; coal yard; junk yard;backyard; churchyard; schoolyard; courtyard; barnyard; lumberyard; brickyard; shipyard; dockyard; stockyard (a pen like enclosure); farmyard; switchyard (railway yard); junkyard.

[“Scotland Yard” or ‘The Yard’ or (more recently) ‘New Scotland Yard’ is the metropolitan police service and its head quarters in London responsible for keeping law & order in Greater London (not the ‘city of London’) dealing with very serious crimes.]

Compare:

‘back yard’ (with a space between the words) and ‘backyard’ (without a space between the words) is:

British English = a small area behind a house, usually covered with a hard surface

American English = a small area behind a house, often covered with grass and/or vegetables plants

e.g.

When you have a family with children you need to buy a house with a back yard where they can play.

The warships are moved to the shipyard for overhauling.

There is a junk yard close to our residence where we pick up some broken parts of furniture and cars to make some weird things just for fun.

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