crofting

English

Etymology

croft +‎ -ing

Noun

crofting (countable and uncountable, plural croftings)

1. A form of land tenure and small-scale food production, unique to the Highlands and islands of Scotland, in which individual crofts are established on the better land while a large area of poor-quality hill ground is shared by all the crofters of the township for grazing.
   • 2017, Cristiana Couceiro, “The Mystery of Mary Trump”, in Politico:

     Her father was a fisherman, and her family fed itself by crofting--age-old, small-plot, subsistence farming—living in a modest gray pebble-dash house, surrounded by a landscape of properties local historians and genealogists characterized with terms like “human wretchedness” and “indescribably filthy.”

2. The process of exposing linen to the sun, on the grass, in the process of bleaching.

Verb

crofting

1. present participle and gerund of croft