Bosworth Toller's

Anglo-Saxon

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toft

  • noun [ masculine ]
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A word apparently of Scandinavian origin, Icel. topt, tuft a piece of ground, messuage, homestead; a place marked out for a house or building; in the special later Icelandic sense a square piece of ground with walls but without roof: Dan. toft an enclosed home-field. It does not occur often in the earliest English, but it is found as the second part of many place-names in districts which were affected by the Danes, v. Taylor's Names and Places.In the Prompt. Parv, toft renders campus; in Piers Plowman it means an elevated piece of ground: I seign a toure on a toft, Prol. 14; while later, according to Kenuett, it is 'a field where a house or building once stood.'
Show examples
  • In the following passages it may mean

    the enclosed ground in which the house stood

    Healf ðæt land æt Súðhám, innur and úttur, on tofte and on crofte,

    • Cod. Dip. Kmbl. iii. 317, 7.

  • Nǽfre myntan ne plot ne plóh, ne turf ne toft,

    • L. O. 13;
    • Th. i. 184, 7;
    • Lchdm. iii. 286, 23.

  • [Ic an] intó ðe túnkirke on Mardingford .v.-acres and áne toft and .ii. acres médwe . . . And míne landseðlen here toftes tó ówen aihte,

    • Cod. Dip. Kmbl. iv. 282, 26-29.

  • Alle míne men fré, and ilk habbe his toft and his metecfi and his metecú. And ic an þe préstes toft into þe kirke fre . . . And ic an Léfquéne fítténe acres and an toft . . . And Alfwold habbe, mid tón þe hé hér hauede, .xvi. acres mid tofte mid alle.

    • Chart. Th. 580, 6-27.
      • v.
    • Grmm. R. A. 539.
Entry information
Citation

Bosworth, Joseph. “toft.” In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/30678.

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Full form

Word-wheel

  • toft, n.

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