agrarian

adjective agrar·i·an \ ə-ˈgrer-ē-ən \

Updated on: 15 Apr 2018

Definition of agrarian

1 : of or relating to fields or lands or their tenure

agrarian landscapes

2 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of farmers or their way of life

agrarian values

b : 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

What can be done to address the risk of climate change in Myanmar, or in other rural, agrarian regions?

— eli meixler / singapore, Time, "‘If I Give You Choice, I'm Showing Respect': How This Man Uses Design to Help the World’s Poorest Farmers," 2 Apr. 2018
In February the government auditor said that 1.3bn pesos ($71m) of public money had gone missing from two ministries run by Rosario Robles, now secretary of agrarian development.

— The Economist, "How AMLO could win Mexico’s election," 28 Mar. 2018
For millions of Chinese students, that has meant hours spent memorizing dry political theory such as former leader Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents and Mao’s thinking on agrarian socialism.

— te-ping chen, WSJ, "Reading, Writing and Xi Jinping Thought: China’s Students Learn Leader’s Philosophy," 23 Mar. 2018
In short order, this and his agrarian subject matter combined with a national mood of restive nostalgia to make Wood a paladin—routinely yoked with the Missourian Thomas Hart Benton and the Kansan John Steuart Curry—of anti-modernist regionalism.

— steven strogatz, The New Yorker, "Beyond “American Gothic”," 5 Mar. 2018
Her play captures that moment in all its ambivalence, with a glamorous culture of consumption pitted against a traditional agrarian economy (cows play a crucial symbolic role in this play).

— mike fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Windfall Theatre's 'Stones in His Pockets' has too many holes," 10 Feb. 2018
Some saw the nation building itself along the line of some of the Asian nations, which boasted a small technologically advanced segment in the midst of a large agrarian or unskilled worker population, on the model of India or Indonesia.

— nan randall, The Atlantic, "'Charlottesville': A Government-Commissioned Story About Nuclear War," 25 Jan. 2018
As a tribute to beer’s agrarian roots, BB set up shop on a 12-acre lot that once grew carnations.

— stephanie granada, Sunset, "10 Best Craft Beer Taprooms in the West," 22 Jan. 2018
Having taken command at the agrarian Hilltop outpost of the Alexandria forces, our steely pregnant farmgirl widow is showing her mettle.

— steve johnson, chicagotribune.com, "What you need to know as 'Walking Dead' returns to finish Season 8," 23 Feb. 2018

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 16th century, describes things pertaining to the cultivation of fields, as well as the farmers who cultivate them.