Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who works on or operates a farm.
  • noun One who has paid for the right to collect and retain certain revenues or profits.
  • noun A simple, unsophisticated person; a bumpkin.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who undertakes the collection of taxes, customs, excise, or other duties for a certain rate per cent., or pays a fixed sum for the privilege of collecting and retaining them: as, a farmer of the revenues.
  • noun In mining, the lord of the field, or one who farms the lot and cope of the crown.
  • noun One who cultivates a farm, either as owner or lessee; in general, one who tills the soil.
  • noun The eldest son of the holder or occupier of a farm; anciently, a yeoman or country gentleman.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who hires and cultivates a farm; a cultivator of leased ground; a tenant.
  • noun One who is devoted to the tillage of the soil; one who cultivates a farm; an agriculturist; a husbandman.
  • noun One who takes taxes, customs, excise, or other duties, to collect, either paying a fixed annuual rent for the privilege.
  • noun (Mining) The lord of the field, or one who farms the lot and cope of the crown.
  • noun one to whom the right of levying certain taxes, in a particular district, was farmed out, under the former French monarchy, for a given sum paid down.
  • noun a light material of cotton and worsted, used for coat linings.
  • noun (O. Eng. Law) one to whom the collection of a royal revenue was farmed out.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who works the land or who keeps livestock, especially on a farm.
  • noun Agent noun of farm; someone or something that farms.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an expert on cooking whose cookbook has undergone many editions (1857-1915)
  • noun United States civil rights leader who in 1942 founded the Congress of Racial Equality (born in 1920)
  • noun a person who operates a farm

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *fermer, fermour ("a steward, bailliff, collector of taxes"), partly from Old French fermier ("a farmer, a lessee, husbandman, bailliff"), from Medieval Latin firmarius ("one to whom land is rented, a collector of taxes, deputy"), from firma, see farm; and partly from Old English feormere ("a purveyor of a guild, a supplier of food, a grocer, farmer"), from feormian ("to purvey, supply, feed"), equivalent to farm +‎ -er. More at farm.

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Examples

Comments

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  • a modern usage of 'farmer' relates to computer games which have items. People 'farm' , or play the game, to get commodities in game items, which are then used for in game currency and trade.

    I heard this used in the Computer gaming realm when World of Warcraft came out, but other games have items with random drops, or items which are gained by grinding away at quests.

    December 31, 2012