acre
nounattested in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈeɪ.kə//
- United States//ˈeɪ.kɚ//
An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86 square metres.
noun
- 1
An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86 square metres.
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
historicalAn English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86 square metres. An area of 10,240 square yards or 4 quarters.
- 3
Any of various similar units of area in other systems.
- 4
informalA wide expanse.
I like my new house—there’s acres of space!
- 5
informalA large quantity.
- 6
obsoleteA field.
- 7
obsoleteThe acre's breadth by the length, English units of length equal to the statute dimensions of the acre: 22 yd (≈20 m) by 220 yd (≈200 m).
- 8
obsoleteA duel fought between individual Scots and Englishmen in the borderlands.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ-? Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros Proto-Germanic *akraz Proto-West Germanic *akr Old English æcer Middle English aker English acre From Middle English acre, aker, from Old English æcer (“field where crops are grown”), from Proto-West Germanic *akr, from Proto-Germanic *akraz (“field”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros (“field”). Doublet of agriculture. 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”).
Forms
- plural
- acres
acre · An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or…
Acre · A port city in northern Israel, holiest city in the Baháʼí…across · To, toward, or from the far side of (something that lies…act · Something done, a deed.