Patio

Do you have a patio where you live?
 
Have you enjoyed a meal or a drink on the sidewalk patio of a restaurant lately and watched the cars and pedestrians go by? In its origins, a patio was a pasture where you could sit and watch the cows go by.
 
Patio is a Spanish word. One theory suggests that the origin of the Spanish word patio is Latin patere (to lie open). A second, more specific theory, suggests that the Spanish word patio is from Old Provencal patu, pati (untilled land, open land, communal pasture) from Latin pactum (agreement, contract, covenant; i.e., an agreement on the use of a piece of land).
 
In either case, the word patio (an inner courtyard open to the sky) came unchanged to English from Spanish patio and is first seen in 1818.
 
The term ‘patio furniture’ (known in Ireland as paddy o’furniture) is from newspaper advertisements in California in 1924. Patio, meaning a paved and enclosed terrace beside a building, is from 1941. The term ‘patio door’ is from 1973.
 
Patio or lawn? Or yard?
 
In its origins, the word lawn was a glade or open space in a forest (Middle English launde). Also, a lawn was a clearing or open space on the heath or other barren land (from Old French lande). The use of lawn to mean a grassy ground kept mowed and manicured is from 1733.
 
A thought: just as a ‘lawn’ seems an attempt to recreate a mowed and manicured English country garden in one’s yard, perhaps a ‘patio’ is an attempt to recreate something of the rural countryside in one’s yard… hmmmm. Yard, by the way, is related to the word garden (flower garden, vegetable garden, memorial garden, etc) and comes from old words meaning an ‘enclosed field’.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
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