The word dooryard is well known to me as a lexical item, but I had no idea what exactly it meant; as ktschwarz said in this Wordorigins thread, “like probably most Americans outside New England, I associate it mainly with Walt Whitman’s ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’.” Fortunately, in the same thread cuchuflete linked to this 2017 FB post from the Bangor Maine Police Department:
The term “dooryard” has such a simple and clear meaning to me that I had no idea the phrase could be so misunderstood. Door + Yard = Dooryard. A concise term, crafted over time by our ancestors. I even received a few notes that hinted of frustration in my use of the term without a definition attached. I feel wicked bad. So stinkin’ bad – that I now have to write an entirely separate post to clear up the confusion.
Dooryard (sometimes pronounced Doah-Yahd – don’t do this) simply means the area of yard adjacent to the most commonly used door exiting the home where you are currently dwelling. It could be the front door, it could be the side door, and it might even be the back door. It also could be the yard(s) located by each and every door in your home. You make the determination of where the “dooryard” is at your home, and if your uncle Mervin stops by, he might only consider the dooryard to be the area near the side door.
The best indicator of the area of which the person speaks would be to pay attention to the movement of their head or shoulders when they use the term. Pointing is too obvious. If the person is indicating the dooryard near the side of the house, he or she might glance in that general direction. You will know, but only if you pay attention.
When you arrive at a home in Maine (and I have arrived at many in many different towns during my time as an investigator) you need to look for door with the most worn path in the grass or mud.Just because there are pavers or crushed rock leading to a door does not mean that it is the clear choice in entry and exit for the homeowners. You must find the dooryard. Screw it up, and you will not be welcomed. […] Whatever you do, do not try to pronounce “dooryard” like Tom Bosley did in “Murder She Wrote.” Do not try to use a Maine accent if you do not have a Maine accent. It actually can get you into trouble. Actually, don’t even try to use the term “dooryard” unless you know where it is. If you use the term regularly, you understand. If you don’t, that’s cool as well. […]
The OED (in a 1897 entry) defines it as “A yard or garden-patch about the door of a house” and gives the following citations:
c1764 in T. D. Woolsey Hist. Disc. (1850) 54 The Freshmen ..are forbidden to wear their hats..in the front door~yard of the President’s or Professor’s house.
1854 J. R. Lowell Cambr. 30 Years Ago in Prose Wks. (1890) I. 59 The flowers which decked his little door-yard.
1878 Emerson in N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 412 We send to England for shrubs, which grow as well in our own door~yards and cow-pastures.
1913 R. Frost Boy’s Will 9 How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded.
1941 T. S. Eliot Dry Salvages i. 7 The rank ailanthus of the April dooryard.
The Dictionary of American Regional English labels it “chiefly NEng, NY” (and Whitman, of course, was from NY). We previously discussed the word in 2018. And in connection with the last citation, I will remind people that in that title Salvages has penultimate stress and “long a” (or, as Eliot annoyingly puts it, “Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with assuages” — why not use wages as the rhyming word rather than one nobody knows how to pronounce?).
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