What does "courtyard" mean?

An area, open to the sky, partially or wholly surrounded by walls or buildings.

What is a synonym for "courtyard"?

Common synonyms include: court, area, arena, cincture, close, confine.

Pronounced //ˈkɔɹt.jɑɹd//.

//ˈkɔɹt.jɑɹd// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Noun

1
An area, open to the sky, partially or wholly surrounded by walls or buildings.
"She sat in the courtyard, enjoying the garden."
2
an area wholly or partly surrounded by walls or buildings wordnet

"In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuans, the traditional courtyard residences."

From court + yard.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.