acre

acre
    n 1: a unit of area (4840 square yards) used in English-speaking
         countries
    2: a territory of western Brazil bordering on Bolivia and Peru
    3: a town and port in northwestern Israel in the eastern
       Mediterranean [syn: {Acre}, {Akko}, {Akka}, {Accho}]
    

Acre \A"cre\, n. [OE. aker, AS. [ae]cer; akin to OS. accar, OHG.
   achar, Ger. acker, Icel. akr, Sw. [*a]ker, Dan. ager, Goth.
   akrs, L. ager, Gr. ?, Skr. ajra. [root]2, 206.]
   1. Any field of arable or pasture land. [Obs.]
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   2. A piece of land, containing 160 square rods, or 4,840
      square yards, or 43,560 square feet. This is the English
      statute acre. That of the United States is the same. The
      Scotch acre was about 1.26 of the English, and the Irish
      1.62 of the English.
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   Note: The acre was limited to its present definite quantity
         by statutes of Edward I., Edward III., and Henry VIII.
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   {Broad acres}, many acres, much landed estate. [Rhetorical]
      

   {God's acre}, God's field; the churchyard.
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            I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
            The burial ground, God's acre.        --Longfellow.
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Acre
is the translation of a word (tse'med), which properly means a
yoke, and denotes a space of ground that may be ploughed by a
yoke of oxen in a day. It is about an acre of our measure (Isa.
5:10; 1 Sam. 14:14).
    

ACRE, measures. A quantity of land containing in length forty perches, and
four in breadth, or one hundred and sixty square perches, of whatever shape
may be the land. Serg. Land Laws of Penn., 185. See Cro. Eliz. 476, 665; 6
Co. 67; Poph. 55; Co. Litt. 5, b, and note 22.