farming

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
farm/fɑːm/

▶noun an area of land and its buildings, used for growing crops and rearing animals.

■ a farmhouse.

■ an establishment for breeding, growing, or producing something: a fish farm | a wind farm.

▶verb

• 1 make one's living as a farmer.

  ■ use (land) for growing crops and rearing animals.

  ■ breed or grow (a type of livestock or crop) commercially.

• 2 (farm someone/thing out) send out or subcontract work to others.

  ■ arrange for a child to be looked after by someone.

• 3 historical allow someone to collect and keep the revenues from (a tax) on payment of a fee.

– derivatives
farmable adjective,
farming noun.

– origin ME (orig. denoting a fixed annual amount payable as rent or tax): from OFr. ferme, from med. L. firma ‘fixed payment’, from L. firmare ‘fix, settle’; cf. firm2.