Also 6 laune, 7 lawne. [Later form of LAUND.]
1. An open space between woods; a glade. = LAUND. Now arch. and dial.
1548. Elyot, Dict., Saltus, a place voyde of trees, as a laune in a parke or forrest.
1591. Greene, Farew. to Folly (1617), D 3 b. Her stature and her shape was passing tall, Diana-like, when longst the Lawnes she goes.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 202. A goodly forrest … intermixed with fruitfull and flowry lawnes.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 25. Ere the high Lawns appear’d Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We drove a field.
1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 405. The thistly lawn, the thick-entangled broom.
1780. A. Young, Tour Irel., I. xviii. (1892), 404. The hills … consist of a large lawn in the center of the two woods, that to the right of an immense extent.
1805. Wordsw., Waggoner, IV. 38. Thence look thou forth o’er wood and lawn Hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn!
1876. Morris, Sigurd, I. 25. She came where that lawn of the woods lay wide in the flood of light.
1899. Times, 3 March, 15/3. So long as the favourite feeding places—lawns, as they are called—of their cattle are not interfered with,… no possible injury can be done to the commoners [of the New Forest].
fig. 1635. Brathwait, Arcad. Pr., I. 120. Privacy was his Lawne, and discontent his Lure.
b. A stretch of untilled ground; an extent of grass-covered land. Also in generalized sense.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 70. Lawn in a Park: Plain untilled ground.
1749. L. Evans, Middle Brit. Col. (1755), 11. They [Indians] fix their Towns commonly on the Edges of great Rivers for the Sake of the rich Lawns to sow their Corn in.
179[?]. Burns, My Nannie’s Awa, iii. Thou laverock that springs frae the dews o’ the lawn.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., I. 124. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green.
1839. E. D. Clarke, Trav. Russia, 47/1. The roads (if a fine turf lawn may be so denominated).
1863. W. Barnes, Dorset Gloss., Lawn or Lawnd, unploughed land; the unploughed part of an arable field.
1890. Science, 12 Sept., 141. A birdseye view … would show 60 acres of beautiful lawn besprinkled with buildings.
2. A portion of a garden or pleasure-ground, covered with grass, which is kept closely mown.
(Somewhat different in early use: cf. quot. 1733, and sense 1.)
1733. Miller, Gardeners Dict., Lawn is a great Plain in a Park, or a spacious Plain adjoining to a noble Seat…. As to the Situation of a Lawn, it will be best in the Front of the House, and to lie open to the neighbouring Country and not pent up with Trees.
1761. Descr. S. Carolina, 6. Fine Savannahs … a Kind of natural Lawns, and some of them as beautiful as those made by Art.
1829. Wordsw., Poems Sentim., xxx. This Lawn, a carpet all alive With shadows flung from leaves.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Universities, Wks. (Bohn), II. 88. I had but a single day wherein to see … the beautiful lawns and gardens of the colleges.
1875. J. D. Heath, Croquet-Player, 89. Finely sifted earth must now be spread over the lawn.
3. attrib. and Comb., as lawn-shading adj.; lawn-like adj. and adv.; lawn-meet, the meeting of a hunt in front of a gentleman’s house; lawn-mower, a machine provided with revolving spiral knives for cutting the grass on a lawn; lawn-party, a party held on a lawn, a garden-party; lawn-sprinkler, a machine with revolving tubular arms from which water is sprinkled like rain. Also LAWN-TENNIS.
1879. Miss Bird, Rocky Mountains, 121. Flowery pastures … sloping *lawnlike to bright swift streams.
1890. Daily News, 8 Dec., 5/5. A *lawn meet of the West Norfolk Hunt took place at Sandringham.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Lawn-mower.
1852. W. Collins, Basil, v. (1856), 17. At pic-nics, *lawn-parties little country gatherings of all sorts.
1820. Keats, Hyperion, III. 25. Poplars, and *lawn-shading palms.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl. *Lawn Sprinkler.
