cawnie

English

Noun

cawnie (plural cawnies)

1. (historical) A measure of land equal to 57,600 square feet or 1.3225 acres, formerly used in India.
   • 1838, William Taylor, Examination and Analysis of the Mackenzie Manuscripts, page 83:

     This fort of mud was formerly built by the Curumbas, covering forty cawnies of ground with two boundary walls, and was long ruled by them.

   • 1854, John Bruce Norton, A Letter to Robert Lowe, Esq., Joint Secretary of the Board of Controul, from John Bruce Norton, Esq. on the Condition and Requirements of the Presidency of Madras, page 82:

     If we take the best cotton land, paying a land tax of Rupees 3-5-5 per cawnie, the proportion would be upwards of 33 per cent.

   • 1862, An Essay on the culture and manufacture of Indigo, page 17:

     We shall now consider the cost of cultivating one cawnie of dry Poonjay land with Indigo by the native cultivator who does not irrigate.

   • 2009, Deborah Sutton, Other Landscapes, page xii:

     On the Nilgiris, the cawnie was initially utilised exclusively in measuring settler occupation.

Alternative forms

• cawney, cawny