clothesyard n chiefly NEast, esp NEng
An outdoor area used for drying clothes.
1801 Green Mt. Patriot (Peacham VT) [17 Sept 3]/4, [Advt:] Stolen. . . A fine Shirt, taken from the Clothes’ Yard, in the same night. 1822 Farmers’ Cabinet (Amherst NH) [14 Sept 4]/3, [Advt:] A good Pasture and some Ploughing, a Clothes Yard, a Hog Pasture and as good a Garden as is in the town of Washington. 1855 (1856) Holmes Homestead Hillside 147 MA, I suspected nothing when Sally’s white dress was bleached on the grass in the clothes’ yard, for nearly a week. 1859 Stowe Minister’s Wooing 433 MA, The fact was discussed by matrons and maidens, at the spinning-wheel, in the green clothes-yard, and at the foamy wash-tub. 1892 Rec.–Union (Sacramento CA) 24 Oct 3/4, The clothes-yard of the Chinese wash house on Third street . . was robbed on Saturday morning of about fifty garments. 1916 Olean Eve. Herald (NY) 24 Jan 7/3, The chances are . . that the plunderers of the clothes-yards are soon to be taken into custody. 1935 Boston Eve. Globe (MA) 31 May 23/6, An alarm was sounded . . for a fire on the roof of a three-story wooden building. . . The blaze was confined to a clothesyard on the top of the building. 1940 Moline Daily Dispatch (IL) 10 June 9/7, [Advt:] Is your clothesyard inconvenient for want of a few more posts or long poles? 1949 in 2009 Cheever Coll. Stories 72 NEng, They’d vary this occasionally by skating on a rink near the inn, which had been made by flooding a clothesyard. 1978 Boston Sun. Globe (MA) 14 May sec C 20/7, [Advt:] 1977 14×70 home, double lot in park, rail fence, utility shed, fully skirted, clothesyard, cent. a-c. 1989 Detroit Free Press (MI) 31 Aug sec A 11/1 Philadelphia PA [Black], In the housing project where we lived, my mother, sister and I washed clothes in the basement coin-operated washing machine and later hung them out in the community clothesyard. 1990 Yankee June 123 cMA, In her living room she has paintings, spring scenes of her mother’s “clothesyard,” where pigs and chickens forage.