Definitions

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

  • noun A place where peat can be dug; a peat bog.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In law, a right of digging turf on another man's land.
  • noun A peat-bog, peat-moor, or peat-swamp; any locality where peat occurs in considerable quantity. See the quotation under peat-moor.

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

  • noun (Eng. Law) A right of digging turf on another man's land; also, the ground where turf is dug.

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

  • noun A piece of peatland from which turf may be cut for fuel.
  • noun Material extracted from a turbary.
  • noun The right to cut turf from a turbary on a common or in some cases, another person's land.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English turbarie, from Anglo-Norman turberie, from Medieval Latin turbāria, from turba, turf, of Germanic origin.]

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Examples

  • We had then to pay a special rate for cutting turf, called turbary, in addition to our rent.

    The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall 1862

  • It is quite easy to understand that a tenant who has been thirty years on a little holding thinks himself entitled to great lenity, especially if his rent has been raised during that period, and, as this man asserts, his "turbary" rights restricted, and every kind of privilege reduced.

    Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. Bernard H. Becker

  • It is only fair to the memory of the deceased gentleman to state that such rights are frequently paid for, and that he had not taken the farm subject to any "turbary" rights or local customs.

    Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. Bernard H. Becker

  • The vast quantity of this unworked fuel would be sufficient to warm the whole population of Iceland for a century; this vast turbary measured in certain ravines had in many places a depth of seventy feet, and presented layers of carbonized remains of vegetation alternating with thinner layers of tufaceous pumice.

    Journey to the Interior of the Earth 2003

  • The right of turbary, which nearly every tenancy possesses, is the one thing which has kept this population from starvation, and in the case of seaside tenancies a further gain accrues from the use made of seaweed as manure, which, owing to the absence of stall-feeding, is only to be obtained in this way.

    Ireland and the Home Rule Movement Michael F. J. McDonnell

  • We have no turbary, or any other easement; but, to compensate us, we have thirlage, outsucken multures, insucken multures, and dry multures; as also we have a soumin and roumin, as any one who has been so fortunate as to hear Mr Outram's pathetic lyric on that interesting right of pasturage will remember, in conjunction with pleasing associations.

    The Book-Hunter A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author John Hill Burton

  • The privilege of turbary, or "getting turf," was a valuable one, and was conferred frequently on the burgesses of towns paying scot and lot.

    Recollections of Old Liverpool A Nonagenarian

  • Sir Edward More, in his celebrated rental, gives advice to his son to look after "his turbary."

    Recollections of Old Liverpool A Nonagenarian

  • I had a few words with the agent about the turbary this morning, and maybe you're better without me.

    Three Plays Padraic Colum 1926

  • Would you give me the red cow you have and the mountainy ram, and the right of way across your rye path, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, and turbary upon the western hill?

    Act Two John Millington 1911

  • In addition to common pasture, commoners were granted rights of pannage, of turbary, of estovers, and of piscary—rights to run their pigs in the woods, to cut peat for fuel, to gather wood from the forests, and to fish.

    The Theft of the Commons Condé Nast 2022

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