acre

Meaning

Noun

• 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.
• Any of various similar units of area in other systems.
• A wide expanse.
• A large quantity.
• A field.
• 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).
• A duel fought between individual Scots and Englishmen in the borderlands.

Related

Similar words

• day's math, demath
• feddan
• morgen
• arpent, arpen, pose
• cawney, cawny, bigha
• Irish acre, collop, plantation acre
• juger, jugerum
• Scottish acre, Scots acre, Scotch acre, acair
• Welsh acre, cover, cyfair, erw, stang

Narrower meaning words

• ( acre) See rood
• ( acre) lug, perch, (now chiefly Scottish) fall

Broader meaning words

• (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 a season) See fardel
• (10 acres, prob. spurious) acreme

Origin

• From Middle English acre, aker, from Old English æcer ("field where crops are grown"), from Proto-West Germanic *ak(k)r, from Proto-Germanic *akraz ("field"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros ("field").
• Cognate with Scots acre, aker, acker, 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 ("field"), Sanskrit अज्र ("field, plain").