backyard

• back-yard, back yard

back +‎ yard

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bækˈjɑːd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

backyard (plural backyards)

1. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US) A yard to the rear of a house or similar residence.
2. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, colloquial) A person's neighborhood, or an area nearby to a person's usual residence or place of work and where the person is likely to go.
   • 2005, Christopher Kennedy Lawford, Symptoms of withdrawal: a memoir of snapshots and redemption‎, →ISBN, page 18:

     The entire beach was my backyard, from the Hiltons' house in the south all the way to Steele Hunter's house in the north.

3. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, colloquial) An area nearby to a country or other jurisdiction's legal boundaries, particularly an area in which the country feels it has an interest.
   • 1942, Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, The Caribbean policy of the United States, 1890-1920‎, page 343:

     However, the region was in the United States backyard and Britain should look passively on with acquiescence in whatever policy the United States saw fit to pursue about Mexico.

Note that backyard is most often written as a single word, while front yard is always written as two words.

• front yard
• garden (UK)