ranch

Other forms: ranches; ranching; ranched

A ranch is a large farm that raises animals, generally grazing animals like cows or sheep. If you dream of raising big, strange-looking birds, you could decide to have an emu or an ostrich ranch instead.

Ranches raise animals for meat, and in the case of sheep or alpacas, for wool. When you work on a ranch, you can say that you ranch. A ranch is also a type of single-story, simple house architecturally influenced by the western, informal style of working ranches, which first appeared in the 1950s in the Western US. Ranch comes from the Spanish rancho, first "group of people who eat together" and later "group of farm huts."