acre

noun \ ˈā-kər \

Updated on: 8 Apr 2018

Definition of acre

1 a archaic : a field especially of arable land or pastureland

b acres plural : lands, estate

2 : any of various units of area; specifically : a unit in the U.S. and England equal to 43,560 square feet (4047 square meters) — see Weights and Measures Table

3 : a broad expanse or great quantity

acres of free publicity

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Examples of acre in a Sentence

The house sits on two acres of land.
They own hundreds of acres of farmland.

Recent Examples of acre from the Web

The school is also in the process of selling several acres on its campus to a developer who plans to build a neighborhood of eight single-family homes.

— laura krantz, BostonGlobe.com, "UMass might help Mount Ida students finish degrees," 5 Apr. 2018
New plans for mass grading were filed recently with the South Florida Water Management District, for more than 200 acres south and east of the Lockheed Martin plant on Sand Lake Road.

— paul brinkmann, OrlandoSentinel.com, "Universal Orlando plows ahead on expansion land," 4 Apr. 2018
The federal government sold the group 92,160 acres in Marengo and Hale counties for $2 per acre, Smith wrote in his book.

— kelly kazek, AL.com, "Scenes from Demopolis: Home of Gaineswood, Vine & Olive Colony," 3 Apr. 2018
The federal government owns about 46 million acres in California.

— matt zapotosky, Washington Post, "Justice Dept. sues California again, this time over state law on transfer of federal lands," 2 Apr. 2018
The new development will encompass more than 50 acres and feature an 8,500-square-foot funeral home and the initial development of 800 cemetery plots, 300 mausoleum crypts and 200 cremation niches.

— robert rhoden, NOLA.com, "Southbound span of Causeway closed after crash," 2 Apr. 2018
The company is working to get permits to expand the site by 241 acres to extend the life of the landfill by 20 additional years.

— jennie key, Cincinnati.com, "Hughes Road closure means big Rumpke bucks for Colerain Township," 30 Mar. 2018
Even before Embreeville closed in the 1990s, officials were exploring what to do with the complex and its surrounding acres.

— caitlin mccabe, Philly.com, "Once a controversial insane asylum, Chester County's Embreeville now the center of an open-space feud," 30 Mar. 2018
Since the program began with $2 million in 1988, voters have approved a total of $31 million to purchase more than 1,650 acres across town.

— peter marteka, Courant Community, "Glastonbury Town Council Approves Purchase Of Land, Development Rights," 29 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'acre.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of acre

Middle English aker, acre, going back to Old English æcer, going back to Germanic *akraz (whence also, with k geminate in West Germanic, Old Saxon akkar "field," Old High German ackar, Old Norse akr "arable land," Gothic akrs "field"), going back to Indo-European *h₂eǵros, whence also Latin ager, "piece of land, field," Greek agrós, Sanskrit ájraḥ,

Note: This Indo-European noun is traditionally linked to the verbal base *h₂eǵ- "drive (cattle, etc.)" (see agent, on the assumption that *h₂eǵ-ros originally meant "pasture," "fallow land," onto which the cattle were driven, and later developed other senses, as "cultivated field." The semantic plausibility of such a derivation has recently been questioned, however.

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: before 12th century

See Words from the same year

Other Weights and Measures Terms

avoirdupois weight, calorie, denier, kip, pace, twain

Acre

geographical name \ ˈä-krē , -(ˌ)krā \

Definition of Acre

state in western Brazil bordering on Peru and Bolivia; capital Rio Branco area 59,343 square miles (153,698 square kilometers), population 733,559