Bentley is the grassy meadow, Broadbent, the broad field, or hill-side, cp. bent (Sc. Irel. and in gen. use in n. and midl. counties and e.An.), any coarse grass, especially that found on moorlands or near the sea, also a sandy hillock or knoll covered with coarse grass, a hill-side. The word is used by Chaucer, and by many other early writers. Brock means a badger, cp. brock (Sc. Irel. n. counties to Chs., also Lin. Lei., &c.), a badger; but the word is obsolescent. Chapman is a word that occurs frequently in M.E. literature, meaning merchant, trader. It is closely connected with cheap, and chaffer, cp. chapman (Sc. Irel. Yks. Lan. Lei. Nhp. Shr. e.An.), a pedlar, a small dealer. Clough, Fairclough, signifies a ravine, cp. clough (n.Cy. dialects), a ravine, chasm, narrow glen. It occurs in Barbour’s Bruce (1375) in the form clewch: ‘In a clewch ... All his archeres enbuschit he,’ xvi. 386. Garth is the Norse form of our word yard, cp. garth (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. Nhp.), a small piece of enclosed ground, usually beside a house, O.N. garðr, a small enclosure of land. Ginnell is probably the same word as O.Fr. chenel, or chanel, a channel, cp. ginnell (Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a narrow passage or entry between buildings. In Scotland it denotes a small channel for water, a street gutter. Greaves is an old form of groves, cp. greave (Irel. Lan.), a grove, a division of a forest, O.E. grǣfa, a bush. Chaucer has the word in a well-known passage:
The busy larke, messager of daye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe graye;
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte,
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes, hongyng on the leeves.
Knightes Tale, ll. 633-8.
Streams, Meadows, Woods, &c.
Hayward means literally hedge-warden, cp. hayward (Chs. Lin. Wor. Glo. Oxf. Bdf. Sus. Hmp. Dor. Som.), a manorial officer whose duty it is to see that fences are kept in repair, to look after the stock, and to impound stray cattle. One of the earliest instances of the use of the word in M.E. occurs in the Ancren Riwle (c. 1210), or Rule of Nuns, where reasons are given in support of the Rule that a nun should keep no beast but a cat only. Among the worldly cares and employments which would come upon her if she were to keep a cow, is that she would have to flatter the ‘heiward’. Holt, Hurst, Shaw are common words in the dialects for wood, copse, O.E. holt, hyrst, scaga, cp. ‘Gaillard he was as goldfinch in the shaws,’ Cokes Tale, l. 3. Inge means a meadow, cp. ing (Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. e.An. Ken. Sur. Sus.), a meadow, pasture, especially low-lying land by the side of a stream or river, M.E. eng, O.N. eng. Kemp originally meant a fighter, cp. kemp (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm.), a champion, a bold impetuous person, O.E. cempa, a soldier, warrior, O.N. kempa, M.E. kempe, a soldier, a champion. In the Lay of Havelok (c. 1280) we read concerning ‘þe starke laddes’ who ‘putten with a mikel ston’: