garner

Did You Know?

What do you call a building in which grain is stored? These days, English speakers are most likely to call it a granary, but there was a time when the noun garner was also a likely candidate. That noun, which can also mean "something that is collected," dates from the 12th century. The verb garner joined the language two centuries later. The verb was once commonly used with the meaning "to gather into a granary," but today it usually means "to earn" or "to accumulate." The noun garner is uncommon in contemporary use; it is now found mainly in older literary contexts, such as these lines of verse from Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor": "Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn."