greensward

plural greenswards · alternative green-sward · alternative green sward

1. countableuncountableA tract of land that is green with grass.

   This is the prettieſt Lovv-borne Laſſe, that euer / Ran on the greene-ſord: […]

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 292, column 2

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   Ventagladia is also a Latin form of the name Vindogladia, and would, as it seems to me, be a good name for the broad reach of greensward below, above and south of Woodyates' Inn. Gwent gledd would mean the open or unenclosed land of greensward.

   1879, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, page 74

   One of the first roads was Norton Way, running from north to south of the town area, and is 60 feet between boundaries, with a 16-foot carriage way of 9-inch slag bottom and 4-inch granite metalling, kerbed with 4-inch pennant kerbing; on either side two 12-foot greenswards and two 10-foot paths; the surface being drained by open ditches in the greensward (Plate VI., No 3).

   1913, Charles Benjamin Purdom, The Garden City: A Study in the Development of a Modern Town, page 258

   From the pools of blood and the enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far more ferocious, than itself.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

   To be plunged straight into the old nut and bolt shop, as was the writer's experience, during a spell of cloudless June Weather was a real hardship, and the mind kept flitting back to the glint of blue water under willow trees and the click of ball on bat on a quiet spacious greensward.

   1944 September–October, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 283

   He followed much of Olmsted and Vaux's plan, creating features such as South Open Ground, a vast greensward created by thinning out native oaks and shaping tons of soil and animal waste into “pleasing slopes and graceful undulations.”

   2015, Colin Fisher, Urban Green: Nature, Recreation, and the Working Class in Industrial Chicago, University of North Carolina Press, page 16