Today's Word " Faldage"
Published in Vocabulary
faldage \FAL-dij\ (noun) - The privilege of setting up folds (pens) in which tenants are required to keep their sheep, and moving them about to any fields the owner wishes in order to fertilize those fields.
"You may have free faldage on my lawn if you will agree to trade grazing for guano and mowing."
From Old English falad, falod, falud, fald "a stall (for sheep, deer, horses, and the like)," akin to Middle Low German valt "an enclosed space, a yard," which turned into Dutch vaalt "dung hill" (you can easily see why). The forms "falad," "falod," and "falud" suggest a connection with Danish fjal and Norwegian fjol "board, plank." "Falod" thus at one time might have referred to the boards that formed an enclosure. The source of the stem before Old English is murky.
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