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 (“field where crops are grown”), from Proto-West Germanic *akr, 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

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

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪkə(r)
• Homophone: acher

Noun

acre (plural acres or (UK colloquial) acre)

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.
   • 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.

   1. (Chester, historical) An area of 10,240 square yards or 4 quarters.
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 yd (≈20 m) by 220 yd (≈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
• (German): Morgen
• (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 ¹⁄₄ a season) See fardel
• (10 acres, prob. spurious) acreme

Hyponyms

• (¹⁄₄ acre) See rood
• (¹⁄₁₆₀ acre) lug, perch, (now chiefly Scottish) fall

Derived terms

• acreable
• acreage
• acre breadth, acre's breadth, acre brede
• acred
• acre-dale
• acre foot, acre-foot
• acreful
• acre-land
• acre length, acre's length, acre lengh
• acreless
• acreman
• acreme
• acre money
• acreocracy
• acre shot
• acre-staff
• all over hell's half acre
• Blackacre
• black acre, black-acre
• broadacre
• broad acres
• Castle Acre
• church acre
• Cornish acre
• Cunningham acre
• English acre
• Fool's acre
• foreacre
• Fouracre
• geld-acre
• God's acre
• hectacre
• Irish acre
• long-acre
• lug-acre
• multiacre
• nanoacre
• plantation acre
• Scots acre, Scottish acre
• share acre
• South Acre
• starve-acre
• statute acre
• stave-acre
• tenantry acre
• Welsh acre
• West Acre
• Whiteacre
• white acre
• Woodacre

 

Related terms

• acorn
• Greenacre
• wiseacre

 

Descendants

• → Norwegian Bokmål: acre
• → Malay: ekar
• → Telugu: ఎకరా (ekarā), ఎకరము (ekaramu)

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)

• Czech: akr (cs) m
• Esperanto: akreo (eo)
• Estonian: aaker (et)
• Faroese: ekra f
• Finnish: eekkeri
• French: acre (fr) f
• Galician: acre (gl) 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: angol hold
• Indonesian: ekar (id)
• Irish: acra m
• Italian: acro (it) m
• Japanese: エーカー (ja) (ēkā)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: بەرجووت (bercût)

• Malay: ekar
• Maori: eka
• Navajo: náhásdzo hayázhí dikʼą́
• Norman: acre f (Jersey)
• Old English: æcer m
• Persian: جریب (fa) (jerib)
• Plautdietsch: Aka m
• Polish: akr (pl) m
• Portuguese: acre (pt) m, jeira f
• Russian: акр (ru) m (akr)
• Scottish Gaelic: acaire f
• Serbo-Croatian: акер m, aker m, jutro (sh) n, ral (sh) m
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: morgen m

• Spanish: acre (es) m
• Swahili: ekari (sw)
• Telugu: ఎకరా (te) (ekarā), ఎకరము (te) (ekaramu)
• Thai: เอเคอร์ (th) (ee-kə̂ə)
• Ukrainian: акр (uk) m (akr)
• Vietnamese: mẫu Anh, mẫu tây (vi)
• Volapük: göded (vo)
• Welsh: erw (cy) f
• Yiddish: אַקער m (aker)
• Yoruba: éékà, sarè

References

• Robert Holland, M.R.A.C., A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Chester, Part I--A to F., English Dialect Society, London, 1884, 3

See also

• international acre
• north forty
• US survey acre

 

• Weights and measures
• Wikipedia article on the acre
• Hufe

Anagrams

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

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)

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

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.kre/
• Rhymes: -akre
• Hyphenation: à‧cre

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin ācrem. Doublet of agro.

Adjective

acre (plural acri, superlative acerrimo)

1. sharp, sour

   Synonyms: acido, agro, aspro

   Synonyms: amabile, dolce

2. (by extension):
   1. penetrating (of a smell)

      Synonym: pungente

   2. shrill (of a sound)

      Synonym: stridente

3. harsh, malevolent

   Synonyms: acido, aspro

   Synonyms: amabile, dolce

Derived terms

• acremente

Related terms

• acredine

Further reading

• acre in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun

acre f pl

1. plural of acra

Anagrams

• Arce, c'era, care, cera, crea, reca

Latin

Pronunciation

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

Adjective

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

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

acre

1. Alternative form of acorn

Etymology 2

Noun

acre

1. Alternative form of aker

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

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of åker.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɪ.kər/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ər
• Hyphenation: a‧cre
• Homophone: eiker

Noun

acre m (definite singular acren, indefinite plural acre or acres, definite plural acrene)

1. an acre (an English unit of land area (symbol: 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)
   • 1920, Jonas Lie, Samlede Digterverker IV, page 288:

     han havde kjøbt de 125,000 acres land af et kompani eller rettere en bande af svindlere

     he had bought the 125,000 acres of land from a company or rather a gang of scammers

   • 1936, Knut Hamsun, Ringen sluttet I, page 85:

     liten elendig farm, firti acres

     small miserable farm, forty acres

   • 1987, Richard Herrmann, Victoria, page 168:

     [glasshuset] dekket et område på 26 acres, som skulle bli over hundre norske mål

     [the glass house] covered an area of 26 acres, which was to be over a hundred Norwegian acres

References

• “acre” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “acre” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
• “acre” in Store norske leksikon

Anagrams

• race

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of åker.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɪ.kər/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

acre m (plural acren)

1. an acre (an English unit of land area (symbol: 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)

References

• “acre” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old Irish

Noun

acre n

1. Alternative spelling of acrae

Mutation

Mutation of acre

radical	lenition	nasalization
acre (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-acre

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈa.kɾi/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈa.kɾi/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈa.kɾe/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈa.kɾɨ/

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

• Homophone: Acre
• Hyphenation: a‧cre

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin ācrem. Doublet of agre, agro, and ágrio.

Alternative forms

• agre

Adjective

acre m or f (plural acres)

1. sharp (unpleasantly acrid or tart in taste)

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of agro.

Noun

acre m (plural acres)

1. (measure) English or American acre, a unit of area about equal to 0.4 hectares

Coordinate terms

• geira (traditional Portuguese equivalent)

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.kre/

Adjective

acre

1. feminine/neuter plural nominative/accusative of acru

Scots

Alternative forms

• acker, ackre, accre, aacre, awker, yicker

Etymology

From Middle English aker, from Old English æcer (“field; acre”), from Proto-West Germanic *akr.

Pronunciation

• (Northern Scots) IPA^(key): /ˈɑ(ː)kər/
• (Central Scots) IPA^(key): /ˈekər/
• (Southern Scots) IPA^(key): /ˈjɪ̢kər/

Noun

acre (plural acres)

1. An acre (unit of measurement).
2. As a lineal measure.
3. piece of ground.

Usage notes

The plural is acre when following a numeral.

Descendants

• →? Scottish Gaelic: acaire, acair

Verb

acre (present participle acrin')

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.

Derived terms

• acrer
• acrin'
• acre-a-bung

References

• “acre, n. v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.
• Eagle, Andy, editor (2024), “acre”, in The Online Scots Dictionary‎^[2]

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈakɾe/ [ˈa.kɾe]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -akɾe
• Syllabification: a‧cre

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin ācrem.

Adjective

acre m or f (masculine and feminine plural acres)

1. bitter; acrid; pungent
2. caustic

   Synonyms: cáustico, mordaz

Derived terms

• acremente

 

Related terms

• acérrimo
• acritud

 

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of agro.

Noun

acre m (plural acres)

1. English or American acre

Further reading

• “acre”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

Anagrams

• arce, caer, cera, crea