English
acre
Acre comes from Old English æcer ‘field where crops are grown’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₂éǵros‘field’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*akraz‘field’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*akr‘field, open land’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150æcer‘field where crops are grown’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500acre
- Englishearliest quotation 2006acre
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₂éǵros‘field’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*akraz‘field’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*akr‘field, open land’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150æcer‘field where crops are grown’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500acre
- Englishearliest quotation 2006acre
Earliest quotation: 2006, Edwin Black: “Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ-
action, agency, act, agent, suggest, strategy, active, activity, actual, register, actor, agenda, essay, digest, congestion, gesture, agony, ambiguous, activate, squat, agile, ambiguity, agility, antagonist, assay, agitation, axiom, progesterone, gestation, ingestion, belligerent, antagonism, agonist, ingest, radium, cogent, agitate, antagonize, actuator, stratagem, 150 more
through Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros ‘field’
Today it means
noun An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86 square metres.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros / acre