acre

See also: Acre and âcre

English

Alternative forms

• aker (archaic)
• acer (-er form, chiefly UK)

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”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: āʹkə, IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.kə/
• enPR: āʹkər, IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.kɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪkə(ɹ)

Noun

acre (plural acres)

1. 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^[1]:

     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.

2. Any of various similar units of area in other systems.
3. (informal, usually in the plural) A wide expanse.

   I like my new house - there’s acres of space!

4. (informal, usually in the plural) A large quantity.
5. (obsolete) A field.
6. (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).
7. (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

Hyponyms

• (¼ acre) See rood
• (¹/₁₆₀ acre) lug, perch, (now chiefly Scottish) fall

Derived terms

Terms derived from acre

• 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

 

Related terms

• acorn
• Greenacre
• wiseacre

 

Descendants

• → Irish: acra

Translations

unit of surface area

• Arabic: آكِر m (ʔākir)
• Burmese: ဧက (my) (eka.)
• Catalan: acre (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 英畝／英亩 (zh) (yīngmǔ), 英亩 (zh) (yīngmǔ)

• Esperanto: akreo (eo)
• Estonian: aaker
• Faroese: ekra f
• Finnish: eekkeri
• French: acre (fr) f
• Galician: acre m
• Georgian: აკრი (aḳri)
• German: Morgen (de) m, Acker (de) m, Joch (de) n, Joch Landes n, Juchart m or f (Swiss)
• Greek: έικρ n (éikr)
• Hungarian: hold (hu)
• Interlingue:
• Irish: acra m
• Japanese: エーカー (ēkā)
• Kurdish:

  Sorani:

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Malay: ekar
• Maori: eka
• Navajo: náhásdzo hayázhí dikʼą́
• Norman: acre f (Jersey)
• Persian: جریب (fa) (jerib)
• Polish: akr (pl) m
• Portuguese: acre (pt) m
• Russian: акр (ru) m (akr)
• Scottish Gaelic: acaire f
• Serbo-Croatian: акер m, aker m
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: morgen m

• Spanish: acre (es) m
• Swahili: ekari (sw)
• Thai: เอเคอร์ (th) (ee-kə̂ə)
• Vietnamese: mẫu Anh, mẫu tây (vi)
• Volapük: göded (vo)
• Welsh: erw (cy) f
• Yiddish: אַקער m (aker)

See also

• international acre
• north forty
• US survey acre
• Weights and measures
• Wikipedia article on the acre
• Hufe

Anagrams

• -care, CERA, Care, Cera, Crea, Race, acer, care, e-car, race, race-

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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)

Noun

acre f (plural acres)

1. (historical) acre

Further reading

• “acre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• âcre, care, créa, race

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Italian

Etymology

From Latin ācre, neuter nominative singular of ācer (“sharp”). Doublet of agro.

Adjective

1. sharp, sour
2. harsh

Related terms

• acredine
• acremente

 

Anagrams

• care, cera, c'era, crea, reca

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Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈaː.kre/, [ˈäːkrɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈa.kre/, [ˈäːkre]

Adjective

(deprecated template usage) ācre

1. neuter nominative/accusative/vocative singular of ācer

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

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Norman

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

acre f (plural acres)

1. (Jersey) acre

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Portuguese

Pronunciation

• 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

• agre

Adjective

1. sharp (having an intense, acrid flavour)

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”).

Noun

acre m (plural acres)

1. acre (unit of surface area)

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Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.kre/

Adjective

acre

1. feminine/neuter plural nominative/accusative of acru

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Scots

Alternative forms

• aker, acker

Etymology

From Middle English aker, from Old English æcer (“field; acre”). Cognate with English acre; see there for more.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈekər], [ˈjɪkər]
• IPA^(key): [ˈakər], [ˈɛkər]

Noun

acre (plural acres)

1. An acre (unit of measurement)

Usage notes

The plural is acre when following a numeral.

Verb

acre (third-person singular simple present acres, present participle acrin, simple past acrit, past participle acrit)

1. To let grain crops be harvested at a stated sum per acre.
2. To be employed in harvesting grain crops at a stated sum per acre.

References

• Eagle, Andy, ed. (2016) The Online Scots Dictionary, Scots Online.

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Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈakɾe/ [ˈa.kɾe]

Etymology 1

From Latin acer, acre. Cf. also agrio.

Adjective

acre m or f (masculine and feminine plural acres)

1. bitter; acrid; pungent
2. caustic

Derived terms

• acremente

Related terms

• acérrimo
• acritud

 

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of agro.

Noun

acre m (plural acres)

1. acre

Anagrams

• arce, caer, cera, crea

Further reading

• Template:R:DRAE 2001