starve-acre

English

Alternative forms

• starveacre
• starve acre
• stave-acre
• stave acre

Noun

starve-acre (uncountable)

1. A type of crowfoot Ranunculus arvensis, known for growing on impoverished soil.
   • 1855, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, page 207:

     Some sandy soils are much overrun with the wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum), provincially called " rump," while the clays are swarmed with starve-acre (Ranunculus arvensis), and the clivers or burrs (Galium aparine), which are very troublesome to separate from the grain when winnowed.

   • 1922, Industrial & Mining Standard, page 500:

     It seems that a particularly tiresome form of rauunculus, well described by the nickname of “starve-acre," can be cxterminated with dressings of sulphate of ammonia, and that this method is equally efficacious in ridding land of the picturesque but unprofitable poppy. Where there is more starve-acre than grass, the farmer pays twice his nominal rent, and is otherwise wasting money by growing weeds on his pasture.

   • 1925, The Farmer and stockbreeder year book and country gentleman's almanack:

     It is quite common for farmers to use cereal grains for seed which contain weed seeds, e.g. starve-acre (ranunculus arvensis), docks, wild oats, rye-like brome (bromus secolinus), etc.

Adjective

starve-acre (comparative more starve-acre, superlative most starve-acre)

1. Pertaining to or characteristic of unproductive, impoverished soil.
   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'urbervilles:

     There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of Flintcomb-Ash farm as a starve-acre place.

   • 2004, James Everett Kibler, Walking Toward Home, →ISBN, page 35:

     They'd grown up together, had seen a lot of life, and were mostly inseparable, through six decades of raven, starve-acre days.

   • 2011, John Rember, Mfa in a Box:

     I suggest that he was instead thinking about his birthplace, where, for a while, those infants did live to inherit the earth, at least the mined-out, falling-down, starve-acre part of it that was the town of Hailey.