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Etymology
editWhy are the beds called lazy? O'Dea (talk) 17:31, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- In "Team Cultivation with the Spade in Scotland" (1977) Alexander Fenton claims it comes from an obsolete use of "lazy" meaning "uncultivated," referring to the fact that the beds are built by piling material on top of untilled ground. I couldn't find a reference to this use of "lazy" on the Oxford English Dictionary or anywhere else that I looked, but I did find it in the Dictionary of the Scots Language ("fallow, untilled") along with an example from 1721: "He that trusts to bon Ploughs, will have his Land lye lazy." Interestingly, the Dictionary of the Scots Language also makes a reference to such a use of "lazy" in English. Ericdyn (talk) 01:02, 24 February 2024 (UTC)