Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A plot of grass, usually tended or mowed, as one around a residence or in a park.
  • noun A light, finely woven, cotton or linen fabric.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An open space in a forest or between or among woods; a glade.
  • noun An open space of ground of some size, covered with grass, and kept smoothly mown, as near a dwelling or in a pleasure-ground.
  • To make into lawn; lay down in grass as a lawn.
  • noun Fine linen cambric, used for various purposes: also applied in the trade to various sheer muslins.
  • noun In ceramics, a fine sieve, generally of silk, through which slip for glazing is passed to bring it to uniform fineness and fluidity.
  • Made or consisting of lawn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A very fine linen (or sometimes cotton) fabric with a rather open texture. Lawn is used for the sleeves of a bishop's official dress in the English Church, and, figuratively, stands for the office itself.
  • noun An open space between woods.
  • noun Ground (generally in front of or around a house) covered with grass kept closely mown.
  • noun a machine for clipping the short grass of lawns.
  • noun a variety of the game of tennis, played in the open air, sometimes upon a lawn, instead of in a tennis court. See Tennis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable A type of thin linen or cotton.
  • noun in the plural Pieces of this fabric, especially as used for the sleeves of a bishop.
  • noun countable, obsolete A piece of clothing made from lawn.
  • noun An open space between woods.
  • noun Ground (generally in front of or around a house) covered with grass kept closely mown.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a field of cultivated and mowed grass

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Middle English launde, glade, from Old French, heath, pasture, wooded area; see lendh- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English laun, after Laon, a city of northern France.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Apparently from Laon, a town in France known for its linen manufacturing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Early Modern English laune ("turf, grassy area"), alteration of laund ("glade"), from Middle English launde, from Old French lande ("heath, moor") of Germanic or Gaulish origin, akin to Breton lann ("heath")"; Old Norse & Old English land

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Examples

  • ~Joe walked across Demi's lawn and across her neighbor's lawn~

    xml's Blinklist.com 2008

  • Clearly, the term lawn, with its 19th-century connotation of society matrons batting a powder puff, should be deleted from the titles of all official national tennis organizations.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1 1992

  • The plants in the yard are wilting and the lawn is an earthy shade of brown.

    A good week for rejection : Bev Vincent 2008

  • Forcing everyone to play Frisbee for 2 hours on their lawn is another.

    Think Progress » Sen. Kit Bond: Mowing Down Lawn Mower Reform 2006

  • Weather: The little moisture every day has been wonderful -- my lawn is actually turning green, and my well may actually have water this summer.

    Archive 2005-04-01 Michael Evans 2005

  • The site of political demonstrations, sporting events, and barbecues, and the object of loving, if not obsessive, care and attention, the lawn is also symbolically tied to our notions of community and civic responsibility, serving in the process as one of the foundations of democracy.

    The American Lawn 2005

  • Weather: The little moisture every day has been wonderful -- my lawn is actually turning green, and my well may actually have water this summer.

    Archive 2005-04-03 Michael Evans 2005

  • Weather: The little moisture every day has been wonderful -- my lawn is actually turning green, and my well may actually have water this summer.

    View from the Northern Border Michael Evans 2005

  • The site of political demonstrations, sporting events, and barbecues, and the object of loving, if not obsessive, care and attention, the lawn is also symbolically tied to our notions of community and civic responsibility, serving in the process as one of the foundations of democracy.

    Archive 2005-07-01 2005

  • But, do you at least understand how people can be confused that on one hand a white person using the ‘n’ word or joking about watermelon growing on the White House lawn is incredibly offensive and at the same time we applaud a video where a black man freely uses the ‘n’ word.

    Think Progress » National Review ‘symposium’ on black unemployment has no black participants. 2010

Comments

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  • An Ancient French loanword originally meaning "a clearing in the woods" (in Gaulish).

    January 31, 2008

  • a type of linen: a sp_ce between woods

    March 26, 2009