acre
English
Etymology
From Middle English acre, aker, from Old English æcer (“a field, land, that which is sown, sown land, cultivated land; a definite quantity of land, land which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, an acre, a certain quantity of land, strip of plough-land; crop”), from Proto-Germanic *akraz (“field”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros (“field”). Cognate with Scots acre, aker, acker (“acre, field, arable land”), North Frisian ecir (“field, a measure of land”), West Frisian eker (“field”), Dutch akker (“field”), German Acker (“field, acre”), Norwegian åker (“field”) and Swedish åker (“field”), Icelandic akur (“field”), Latin ager (“land, field, acre, countryside”), Ancient Greek ἀγρός (agrós, “field”), Sanskrit अज्र (ájra, “field, plain”). Related to acorn.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: āʹkə, IPA(key): /ˈeɪ.kə/
- (General American) enPR: āʹkər, IPA(key): /ˈeɪ.kɚ/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪkə(ɹ)
Noun
acre (plural acres)
- An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's plowing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86 square meters.
- 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
- Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands.
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- Any of various similar units of area in other systems.
- (informal, usually in the plural) A wide expanse.
- I like my new house - there’s acres of space!
- (informal, usually in the plural) A large quantity.
- (obsolete) A field.
- (obsolete) The acre's breadth by the length, English units of length equal to the statute dimensions of the acre: 22 yds (≈20 m) by 220 yds (≈200 m).
- (obsolete) A duel fought between individual Scots and Englishmen in the borderlands.
Synonyms
- (approximate): day's math, demath
- (Egyptian): feddan
- (Dutch): morgen
- (French): arpent, arpen, pose
- (India): cawney, cawny, bigha
- (Ireland): Irish acre, collop, plantation acre
- (Roman): juger, jugerum
- (Scottish): Scottish acre, Scots acre, Scotch acre, acair
- (Wales): Welsh acre, cover, cyfair, erw, stang
Hypernyms
- (100 carucates, notionally) See hundred
- (the area able to be plowed by 8 oxen in a year) See carucate
- (the area able to be plowed by two oxen in a year) See virgate
- (the area able to be plowed by an ox in a year) See oxgang
- (the area able to be plowed by an ox in half a season) See nook
- (the area able to be plowed by an ox in ¼ a season) See fardel
- (10 acres, prob. spurious) acreme
Derived terms
- acreable
- acreage
- acre breadth, acre's breadth, acre brede
- acred
- acre-dale
- acre foot, acre-foot
- acre-land
- acre length, acre's length, acre lengh
- acreless
- acreman
- acreme
- acre money
- acre shot
- acre-staff
- black acre, black-acre
- broad acres
- church acre
- Cornish acre
- Cunningham acre
- English acre
- Fool's acre
- geld-acre
- God's acre
- Irish acre
- long-acre
- lug-acre
- plantation acre
- Scots acre, Scottish acre
- share acre
- starve-acre
- statute acre
- tenantry acre
- Welsh acre
- white acre
Descendants
- → Irish: acra
Translations
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See also
- international acre
- north forty
- US survey acre
- Weights and measures
- Wikipedia article on the acre
French
Etymology
Probably from Old Norse akr reenforced by Old English æcer (“a field, land, that which is sown, sown land, cultivated land; a definite quantity of land, land which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, an acre, a certain quantity of land, strip of plough-land; crop”) .
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /akʁ/
audio (file) Audio (US) (file)
Further reading
- “acre” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Italian
Latin
Adjective
ācre
References
- acre in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- acre in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
- acre in Richard Stillwell et al., editor (1976) The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
Portuguese
Pronunciation
- (Portugal) IPA(key): /ˈa.kɾɨ/
- Hyphenation: a‧cre
Etymology 1
From Latin ācre, neuter nominative singular of ācer (“sharp”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ḱrós (“sharp”).
Alternative forms
Etymology 2
Borrowed from English acre, from Middle English acre, aker, from Old English æcer, from Proto-Germanic *akraz (“field”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros (“field”).
Romanian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈa.kre/
Scots
Etymology
From Middle English aker, from Old English æcer (“field; acre”). Cognate with English acre; see there for more.
Usage notes
The plural is acre when following a numeral.
Verb
acre (third-person singular present acres, present participle acrin, past acrit, past participle acrit)
Spanish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈakɾe/
Etymology 1
From Latin acer, acre. Cf. also agrio.
Derived terms
Further reading
- “acre” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.