acre
A unit of land area; originally the amount of land an ox team could plough in a day.
Etymology
From Old English æcer "field, cultivated land," from Proto-Germanic *akraz, from PIE *h₂eǵ- "to drive." The original meaning was about driving a plough team — an acre was the area a yoked pair of oxen could plough in a day. The word preserves agricultural life from at least 6,000 years ago.
The Journey: *h₂eǵ- → acre
*h₂eḱ-
*akraz
æcer
acre
Cognates Across Languages
These words in other languages descend from the same PIE root *h₂eǵ-. They are not borrowings but independent inheritances from a common ancestor.
| Language | Word |
|---|---|
| Greek | agrós (field) |
| Latin | ager (field) |
| Gothic | akrs |
| Sanskrit | ájras (plain) |
| Old Norse | akr |
Did You Know?
Latin ager "field" gives "agriculture," "agrarian," and "pilgrim" (per + ager, "through the fields"). English "acre" is the same word by a different sound-change path.
This word descends from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂eǵ-. See the full root page for descendant trees, sound law references, and scholarly discussion.