What’s the difference between an orchard and a grove? People plant orchards with trees meant to bear fruit or nuts, whereas groves aren’t necessarily planted. So an orange grove might be more accurately called an orange orchard. The problem is, orange orchard doesn’t sound nearly as pleasant as orange grove. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Orchard vs. Grove”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Karen Linick from Vista, California.
Hey, Karen, welcome.
Hi, Karen, welcome to the program. What can we help you with?
Well, I’ve long wondered what the difference is between an orchard and a grove. The dictionaries I’ve consulted haven’t been very helpful. I always thought that a grove was for citrus, but my husband, who grew up in Orange County, says orange orchard, which sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
Oh, interesting. I’ve heard that before. Because those two words beginning with the or kind of just don’t seem right.
Yeah, it’s weird. So it kind of orange groves easier.
It’s much easier.
Yeah, much easier. So your dictionaries weren’t very helpful. I’m really surprised. Maybe you need a better dictionary because they should have this sorted out for us.
Well, it had something to do with the organization of the trees and whether it was natural or planted, but that didn’t seem to make sense either.
Oh, you know what I think happened here? And I apologize on behalf of my lexicographical colleagues, is they probably wrote it in dictionaries to be as brief as possible, which sometimes means it’s really hard to untangle their meanings.
I think we can unpack this, right, Martha?
You’re going to untangle it, aren’t you?
Yeah, you know what? There is something to that. An orchard is planted and a grove probably isn’t. An orchard is always a planted tree. Humans put it there. And it’s a fruit tree or a nut tree. It bears food for humans.
So a grove is any kind of collection of trees of the same sort that are together in an area of small size, so not a forest, not a wood, but a grove. And then an orchard is fruit-bearing or nut-bearing trees that are planted in order to grow food.
Yeah, orchard goes back to the Latin word for garden. It’s related to horticulture. And originally orchard was a garden, not just a place for trees, but a place for any kind of plants, especially those that grew food.
Yeah. But now it’s restricted. And I see orange orchard every once in a while, but far and away the more common term is orange grove.
Yeah, if you look at, and I don’t know if you did this, Karen, and you’re digging around, but if you look at the orange growers associations, you rarely find the word orchard there in their materials. It’s grove. Grove is, it’s friendlier. It sounds more natural for some reason than orchard. I don’t know what that is exactly.
By the way, I don’t know what dictionary you’re using, but we can make a bunch of recommendations. If you look on the reference section of our website, there’s quite a few if you’re in the market for a dictionary that will help you sort this kind of thing out.
Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling, Karen. Really appreciate it.
Sure. Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Thanks for the answer.
All right.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
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