A barnyard is the fenced or enclosed area around a barn where farm animals live, eat, and move around during the day. Picture the space where chickens scratch in the dirt, pigs root around in mud puddles, and cows wait to be milked. The barnyard is like the farm's central gathering place for animals.

Barnyards are usually unpaved and often muddy, with a practical, messy quality that comes from animals trampling the same ground every day. They might contain feeding troughs, water tanks, and piles of hay. The word captures a whole rural atmosphere: the smell of animals, the sounds of roosters crowing and pigs grunting, the constant activity of farm life.

A barnyard animal is any of the common farm animals you'd find there: chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, goats, sheep, or cattle.

The barnyard appears constantly in children's books and classic stories, from Charlotte's Web to Animal Farm, because it's a setting everyone recognizes, where different personalities and species mix together in one busy, lively space.