"Weil dort die Waldung ausgerodet ward."
(SCHILLER, Wilhelm Tell.)
Among its compounds are Ackroyd (oak), Grindrod (green), Murgatroyd (Margaret), Learoyd (lea), Ormerod, etc. We also find the name Rodd, which may belong here or to Rudd (Chapter VII), and both these names may also be for Rood, equivalent to Cross or Crouch (Chapter II), as in Holyrood. Ridding is also related to Royd. Hacking may be a dim. of Hack (Chapter VII), but we find also de le hacking, which suggests a forest clearing.
Thwaite, from Anglo-Sax. þwitan, to cut, is found chiefly in Cumberland and the adjacent region in such compounds as Braithwaite (broad), Hebbelthwaite, Postlethwaite, Satterthwaite. The second of these is sometimes corrupted into Ablewhite as Cowperthwaite is into Copperwheat, for "this suffix has ever been too big a mouthful in the south" (Bardsley). A glade or valley in the wood was called a Dean, Dene, Denne, cognate with den. The compounds are numerous, e.g. Borden (boar), Dibden (deep), Sugden (Mid. Eng. suge, sow), Hazeldean or Heseltine. From the fact that swine were pastured in these glades the names Denman and Denyer have been explained as equivalent to swineherd. As a suffix -den is often confused with -don (Chapter XII). At the foot of Horsenden Hill, near Harrow, two boards announce Horsendon Farm and Horsenden Golf-links. An opening in the wood was also called Slade—
"And when he came to Barnesdale,
Great heavinesse there hee hadd;
He found two of his fellowes
Were slain both in a Slade."
(Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.)
The maps still show Pond Slade in Richmond Park, The compound Hertslet may be for hart-Slade.
Acre, a field, cognate with, but not derived from, Lat. ager, occurs in Goodacre, Hardacre, Linacre, Whittaker, etc., and Field itself gives numerous compounds, including Butterfield (bittern, Chapter XXIII), Schofield (school), Streatfeild (street), Whitfield.
Pasture-land is represented above all by Lea, for which see Chapter III. It is cognate with Hohenlohe and Waterloo, while Mead and Medd are cognate with Zermatt (at the mead). Brinsmead thus means the same as Brinsley.