E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Town (A)
is the Anglo-Saxon tún, a plot of ground fenced round or enclosed by a hedge; a single dwelling; a number of dwelling-houses enclosed together forming a village or burgh.
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“Our ancestors in time of war … would cast a ditch, or make a strong hedge about their houses, and houses so environed … got the name tunes annexed unto them (as Cote-tun, now Cotton, the cote or house fenced in or tuned about; North-tun, now Norton … South-tun, now Sutton). In troublous times whole ‘thorpes’ were fenced in, and took the name of tunes (towns), and then ‘stedes’ (now cities), and ‘thorpes’ (villages), and burghs (burrows) . . got the name of townes.”—Restitution, p. 232.
