agrarian

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adjective agrar·i·an \ə-ˈgrer-ē-ən\

Definition of agrarian

1 : of or relating to fields or lands or their tenure agrarian landscapes
2a : of, relating to, or characteristic of farmers or their way of life agrarian valuesb : organized or designed to promote agricultural interests an agrarian political party

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Examples of agrarian in a Sentence

a town founded in 1811 as an agrarian community

Recent Examples of agrarian from the Web

It was divided not only geographically, between East and West, but also by class – between the rural, agrarian peasants who occupied the expansive countrysides, and the intellectual elite in the cities.

— Smithsonian, "Why This Composer Made Melodies Out of Mountainsides", 1 July 2017
Both harvest trucks will help chip away at food access problems and point people back to the country's agrarian roots through education, Lawler said.

— maureen c. gilmer, Indianapolis Star, "Farm on wheels will deliver fresh produce to Indy food deserts", 30 June 2017
Both harvest trucks will help chip away at food access problems and point people back to the country's agrarian roots through education, Lawler said.

— maureen c. gilmer, USA TODAY, "Farm on wheels will deliver fresh produce to food deserts", 30 June 2017
But this meant that heavy metals such as lead or zinc, traces of detergents and medical drugs as well as germs and viruses made it into agrarian food production, which is why the Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU) intervened in 2006.

— martin sturzenegger, USA TODAY, "Swiss startup crafts green toilets to turn human waste into fertilizer", 24 June 2017
Mr. Nuon Chea and Mr. Khieu Samphan are the last survivors of a tightknit group that tried to turn Cambodia into an agrarian utopia, killing off its educated people and reorganizing the country into what amounted to a nationwide labor camp.

— seth mydans, New York Times, "Khmer Rouge Trial, Perhaps the Last, Nears End in Cambodia", 23 June 2017
Egyptians are known for having large families, a legacy of the country’s not so distant agrarian past.

— maggie hyde, The Seattle Times, "Egypt census workers detect another baby boom", 21 June 2017
In agrarian societies, tied to the land and the seasons, flower crowns had great symbolic meaning.

— Vogue, "The History of Flower Crowns and the Women Who Wore Them: From Frida Kahlo to Kate Moss", 19 June 2017
Backyard gardens are nothing new, but using them to address the wider problem of food insecurity would signify a return to our roots as an agrarian society, a time when farmers and families looked out for one another.

— maureen c. gilmer, Indianapolis Star, "How Hamilton County gardeners are helping feed their hungry neighbors", 1 June 2017

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

Did You Know?

Today, an acre is generally considered to be a unit of land measuring 43,560 square feet (4,047 square meters). Before that standard was set, it's believed that an acre represented a rougher measurement - the amount of land that could be plowed in one day with a yoke of oxen. Both acre and agrarian, derive from the Latin noun ager and the Greek noun agros, meaning "field." (You can probably guess that agriculture is another descendant.) Agrarian, first used in English in the 17th century, describes things pertaining to the cultivation of fields, as well as the farmers who cultivate them.