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 agrós, meaning "piece of land, 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.
Adjective a town founded in 1811 as an agrarian community
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
The idea of shukyo effectively pitted Japan’s agrarian spiritual traditions, and by extension Japan itself, against the ascendant industrial West. Hiroko Yoda, The New Yorker, 26 July 2022 Miyazaki’s works, from Princess Mononoke to Spirited Away to his most recent feature The Wind Rises, are suffused with a reverence for nature and the more connected, agrarian lifestyle that once characterized Japanese culture. Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 June 2022 Claiming to represent the common man, Jackson was distrustful of experts and elites and held on to a fading agrarian vision of America. Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 June 2022 The agrarian and cultural microcosm of Napa Valley is at forefront of climate change concerns. Stephan Rabimov, Forbes, 7 May 2022 In the wake of that catastrophe, settlers in the Central Valley began building their agrarian paradise. Susie Cagle, Wired, 12 Apr. 2022 Such executions were common in Democratic Kampuchea, as the Khmer Rouge renamed the country, where an agrarian utopia was to replace a decadent capitalism.New York Times, 16 Mar. 2022 Throughout Ukraine’s agrarian steppes, kulaks protested wildly.Longreads, 2 Mar. 2022 In its new findings, Citizen Lab found that Michal Kolodziejczak, a 33-year-old farmer and agrarian social movement leader was hacked several times in May 2019. Vanessa Gera, ajc, 25 Jan. 2022
Noun
The writer-agrarian-soil conservationist founded Malabar Farm in Mansfield. Marc Bona, cleveland, 7 Dec. 2020 Closing the forts frustrated foreclosure proceedings; moreover, for Shay’s enraged agrarians, the courts were a tangible symbol of the eastern moneyed interest and of a government unresponsive to their needs. Thomas Wendel, National Review, 4 July 2019 Southern agrarians disdained capitalism; Peter Viereck spent his time lecturing Americans on the virtues of Metternich and that great homegrown Tory, FDR. Richard Brookhiser, National Review, 4 June 2019 There are the populares of Ancient Rome, the agrarians of nineteenth-century Wisconsin, and the Peronists of twentieth-century Argentina. Yascha Mounk, New Republic, 19 July 2017 Jefferson, an agrarian, generally opposed a strong central government. Jonathan W. White, Smithsonian, 17 Mar. 2017 See More
Word History
Etymology
Adjective
Latin agrārius "of landed property" (from agr-, ager "piece of land, field" + -ārius-ary entry 2) + -an entry 2 — more at acre