Note 64 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The "stick" meaning survives in the yards of a ship. Yard was once the general word for rod, wand. Thus the "cheating yardwand" of Tennyson's "smooth-faced snubnosed rogue" (Maud, I. i. 16) is a pleonasm of the same type as greyhound (p. 135). Yard, an enclosure, is a separate word, related to garden. The doublet garth, used in the Eastern counties, is of Scandinavian origin—
"I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate." (Tennyson, The Grandmother, l. 38.)