Due to a misreading, a group including myself have searched for the

definition of the word "farth" and come up with nothing. We now

know that the original text did not actually use this word, but the word
still strikes us as feeling eerily familiar and somehow fitting of the
context in which is was found - a geographic feature found in
uncivilized wilderness.

The original quote (we thought we read) was:

North past forest, farth, and furrow

You must go to reach the feathered mound

We later found out that the word that was meant to be there
was farm. Nonetheless, we have found a fascination with this
potentially made-up word.

Is "farth" actually a word in any version of English, Latin, or other

Roman-character-using languages?
meaning
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edited Feb 6 '13 at 19:59

Matt E. Эллен♦
25.4k1488153
asked Jan 17 '13 at 3:12

Southpaw Hare
6651923

Have you checked any dictionaries? – simchona Jan 17 '13 at 3:15

Indeed. I've done a decent amount of Google searching through online

dictionaries, and have found no matches at all. – Southpaw Hare Jan 17
'13 at 3:18

Would you mind giving us the sentence where this word appears?
 Depending on the context, it might well end up being an obvious misprint
for farthing, as starwed suggests. – Branimir Ćaćić Jan 17 '13 at 3:31

Urban Dictionary has a suggestion. It is just a silly joke, though. – Jon

Hanna Jan 17 '13 at 4:02

1
I look and look at this word, and all I see is 'fart' – JAM Jan 17 '13 at 4:26

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3 Answers
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10

The Oxford English Dictionary says it was once used in English:

farth: alleged synonym of farrow n. 2.

1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 134/1: "The young ones...of a sow...are

called a Farth, a Farrow of Pigs."
So a farrow is the/an act of giving birth to a nest of piglets.

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answered Jan 17 '13 at 3:57

Cerberus
54.2k2120208

This is, ironically, very related to the actual word, "farm", that we misread.
Amusing! – Southpaw Hare Jan 17 '13 at 4:42

add a comment
7
Very few languages have th sounds, much less following another
consonant at the end of a word. However, there is apparently such a
word in Icelandic. A post on this page uses the form, though my
Icelandic is really a bit too rusty to say for sure ;-)

farð að vinna.
Jájá fer að vinna á laugardaginn!

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answered Jan 17 '13 at 3:38

jlovegren
12.2k12144

"Visit", "journey", "go". It might be cognate with the first part of

"Ferdinand", but it's not the only possible etymology of that name. (And
yeah, I just checked up further on your suggestion). – Jon Hanna Jan 17
'13 at 3:59

I don't speak Icelandic either, but from a bit of Googling, it looks

like farð in your sample is a contraction of farðu, the imperative form
of fara, "to go". There does, however, exist the (presumably related)
noun ferð("trip", "journey"). (Ps. The top search results for
either farð or farðu on Google seem to be rather, um, colorful.)– Ilmari
Karonen Jan 17 '13 at 11:22

Could you give a reference for the claim that "Very few languages have th
sounds"? Of the 5 I can comment on, only two do not have a th sound. I am
referring to 'th' as in thin not th as in this. – terdon Aug 29 '13 at 17:33

1
@terdon look at wals.info chapter 19A, showing less than 10% in a sample
of 500+ languages having either sound. – jlovegren Aug 30 '13 at 1:20

And that's why one cannot draw robust concl