acre

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

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”).

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

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪkə(r)
• Homophone: acher

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.^[1]
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.

• (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

• (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

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

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

• 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

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

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

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”).

• IPA^(key): /akʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

acre f (plural acres)

1. (historical) acre

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

• âcre, care, créa, race

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

Borrowed from Latin ācrem. Doublet of agro.

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

• acremente

• acredine

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

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

acre f pl

1. plural of acra

• Arce, c'era, care, cera, crea, reca

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

ācre

1. neuter nominative/accusative/vocative singular of ācer

• “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

acre

1. Alternative form of acorn

acre

1. Alternative form of aker

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

acre f (plural acres)

1. (Jersey) acre

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of åker.

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɪ.kər/

• Audio:

  (file)

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

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

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

• race

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of åker.

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɪ.kər/

• Audio:

  (file)

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)

• “acre” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

acre n

1. Alternative spelling of acrae

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
acre (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-acre
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

• Homophone: Acre
• Hyphenation: a‧cre

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

• agre

acre m or f (plural acres)

1. sharp (unpleasantly acrid or tart in taste)

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of agro.

acre m (plural acres)

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

• geira (traditional Portuguese equivalent)

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.kre/

acre

1. feminine/neuter plural nominative/accusative of acru

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

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

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

acre (plural acres)

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

The plural is acre when following a numeral.

• →? Scottish Gaelic: acaire, acair

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.

• acrer
• acrin'
• acre-a-bung

• “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]

• IPA^(key): /ˈakɾe/ [ˈa.kɾe]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -akɾe
• Syllabification: a‧cre

Borrowed from Latin ācrem.

acre m or f (masculine and feminine plural acres)

1. bitter; acrid; pungent
2. caustic

   Synonyms: cáustico, mordaz

Borrowed from English acre. Doublet of agro.

acre m (plural acres)

1. English or American acre

• “acre”, in Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy, 2023 November 28

• arce, caer, cera, crea