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Basic meaning="open countryside" |
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The modern word field today means the exact opposite of the original meaning.
The word, in many forms, is widely used across several European languages, thus showing its Celtic orgins (as in Welsh coed). The Danes, for example, brought us the word fjall (today used as "fell" in Cumbria). In Africa, they extensively use the Dutch word "veldt" to desribe the open bush country (as contrasted with jungle). In the Rhine Valley of Germany there is the gigantic Schwartz Wald (Black Forest). In England we have "Wealds" and "wolds".
Nowadays, we tend to think of field as an enclosed area of land, not at all like the medieval equivalent which meant wild, uncultivated bush country. |
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