homestead

plural homesteads

1. A house together with surrounding land and buildings, especially on a farm; the property comprising these.

   The preacher lived on his homestead two miles away and it seemed to Laura the longest drive she had ever taken, and yet it was over all too soon.

   1971, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The First Four Years, page 10

   3 more examples

   A Yard she had with Pales enclos’d about, / Some high, some low, and a dry Ditch without. / Within this Homestead, liv’d without a Peer, / For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer:

   1700, John Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables, Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, page 225

   […] no sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar.

   1778, Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, London: B. White & Son, published 1789, Letter 43 to Daines Barrington, page 242

   It was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing close upon the road […]

   1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC

   1. CanadaUSA parcel of land in the interior of North America, usually 160 acres, that was distributed to settlers from Europe or eastern North America under the Dominion Lands Act of 1870 in Canada or the Homestead Act of 1862 in the United States.

      1 more example

      He owned exactly six hundred and forty acres of what stretched outside his door; his own original homestead and timber claim, making three hundred and twenty acres, and the half-section adjoining, the homestead of a younger brother who had given up the fight, gone back to Chicago to work in a fancy bakery […]

      1913, Willa Cather, chapter 2, in O Pioneers!, Part 1

      Synonyms: farmstead, quarter section

2. The place that is one's home.

   Grief from yeer to yeer / Rents my poor Heart, and makes his Home-stead there:

   1649, Thomas Bancroft, “To the never-dying Memory of the Noble Lord Hastings”, in Richard Brome, editor, Lachrymæ Musarum, London, page 54

3. South AfricaA cluster of several houses occupied by an extended family.
4. obsoleteThe home or seat of a family; place of origin.

   The PETSCHENEGRANS, as they are called in the russian and polish year-books, name themselves Kangar or Kangli, and were a powerful nomadic nation, which we can trace back to a homestead on the rivers Volga and Ural.

   1799, William Tooke, View of the Russian Empire during the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Present Century, volume 2, London: Longman and Rees, Book 2, Section 4, page 38

   1 more example

   Where then wast thou tempted, O Blessed Jesu? or whither wentest thou to meet with our great Adversary? I do not see thee led into the marketplace, or any other part of the City, or thy home-stead of Nazareth, but into the vast Wilderness, the habitation of beasts;

   c. 1620s, Joseph Hall, The Contemplations upon the History of the New Testament, London, published 1661, page 30

present singular third person homesteads · participle present homesteading · participle past homesteaded · past homesteaded

1. intransitivetransitiveTo acquire or settle on land as a homestead.First known use 1872

   He's an old man, Bandy...he homesteaded here. He lives with his grandson...he said he would like to talk to you.

   2007, Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood (motion picture), spoken by Al Rose (Jim Downey), set between 1898-1927 in New Mexico and Southern California with dialogue written to reflect the time period

   1 more example

   When Samuel and Liza came to the Salinas Valley all the level land was taken, the rich bottoms, the little fertile creases in the hills, the forests, but there was still marginal land to be homesteaded, and in the barren hills, to the east of what is now King City, Samuel Hamilton homesteaded.

   1952, John Steinbeck, chapter 2, in East of Eden

2. transitivepolitical philosophy; chiefly libertarianism; political philosophy; chiefly libertarianismTo appropriate an unowned, scarce means, and thereby gain ownership of it.

1. A number of places in the United States:
   1. Former name of Indian Wells, Kern County, California.
   2. A city in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
   3. A census-designated place in Iowa County, Iowa.
   4. A township in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.
   5. A township in Benzie County, Michigan.
   6. An unincorporated community in Sugar Island Township, Chippewa County, Michigan.
   7. A village in Ray County, Missouri.
   8. A census-designated place in Catron County, New Mexico.
   9. An unincorporated community in Blaine County, Oklahoma.
   10. An unincorporated community in Baker County, Oregon.
   11. A neighbourhood in south-west Portland, Oregon.
   12. A borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
   13. A town in Florence County, Wisconsin.
2. A rural town and locality in Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia.