garden [ME] Garden comes from Old French jardin or gardin and has an ancient root that is also the ancestor of *yard. You can say everything in the garden is lovely (or rosy) when all is well. This late 19th-century catchphrase originated in a song made popular by the English music hall star Marie Lloyd (1870–1922). If someone makes you believe something that is not true by giving you misleading clues or signals, they can be said to be leading you up the garden path. The phrase was first used in the early 20th century in the form lead you up the garden, suggesting that the original idea was of someone enticing a person they wanted to seduce or flirt with into a garden, away from the safety of the house.