steading means A farmhouse and outer buildings such as barns, stables, cattle-sheds, etc.; a farmstead; a homestead, an onstead, an estate. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why “steading” is a great word
STEADING — [Noun] A farmhouse with its associated outbuildings, such as barns and stables; a farmstead or homestead. From Middle English *steding* ("place, farm"), from Middle English *stede* ("estate, property, holdings"), from Old English *stede* ("locality, place, site, position, station"). First attested in the late Middle English period (c. 1472). Unlike "farmstead," which neutrally denotes a functional agricultural unit, or "homestead," which emphasizes familial settlement and owned land, "steading" carries the weight of stone and history, focusing on the collective physicality of the farm buildings, particularly in Scots usage. It is the low, grey-stone house braced against the wind, the barn’s deep shadow falling across the yard, and the mossed slate roofs gathered around a muddy yard—a testament not to mere occupation, but to the stubborn architecture of staying put.
Etymology
From Middle English steding (“place, farm”), from Middle English stede (“estate, property, holdings”), from Old English stede (“locality, place, site, position, station”).
noun
- A farmhouse and outer buildings such as barns, stables, cattle-sheds, etc.; a farmstead; a homestead, an onstead, an estate.“She never seemed to want for siller; the house was as bright as a new preen, the yaird better delved than the manse garden; and there was routh of fowls and doos about the small steading, forbye a wheen sheep and milk-kye in the fields.”