Assart
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Forest land cleared for agriculture. countable, uncountable
- 2 The act or offence of grubbing up trees and bushes, and thus destroying the thickets or coverts of a forest. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"[…] an assart of the Forest, is the greatest offence or trespasse of all other, that can be done in the forest, to vert or venison, containing in it as much as waste or more. For whereas the waste of the Forest, is but the felling and cutting downe of the couerts, which may grow againe in time: an assart, is a plucking them vp […]"
- 1 To clear forest land for agriculture; remove stumps.
"[…] if a man sue out a Licence to assart his grounds in the Forest, and to make it several for Tillage, then it is no offence."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"[…] an assart of the Forest, is the greatest offence or trespasse of all other, that can be done in the forest, to vert or venison, containing in it as much as waste or more. For whereas the waste of the Forest, is but the felling and cutting downe of the couerts, which may grow againe in time: an assart, is a plucking them vp […]"
Etymology
From French essart from Vulgar Latin exsartum.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.