acren.

Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian ekker , ēker , ikker , akker field, cultivated field, measure of land, Middle Dutch acker cultivated field, measure of land (in Old Dutch only in place names; Dutch akker ), Old Saxon akkar , akar field, cultivated field (Middle Low German acker , also cultivated land collectively, measure of land), Old High German ackar , acchar , akar cultivated field, field, countryside (as opposed to town) (Middle High German acker , German Acker ), Old Icelandic akr cultivated land, field, cornfield (sometimes used in opposition to enclosed homefield), crop, Old Swedish aker , akker cultivated land, field, crop (Swedish åker ), Old Danish akær cultivated land (Danish ager ), Gothic akrs field < the same Indo-European base as classical Latin ager piece of land, territory, country, region, farm, estate, cultivated land, soil, countryside (as opposed to town), ancient Greek ἀγρός field, farm, cultivated land, countryside (as opposed to town), Sanskrit ajra plain, open country, ultimately < the same Indo-European base as classical Latin agere (see act v.), although the precise type of formation shown and the stages of its development are uncertain and disputed. Borrowing from Germanic languages is shown by post-classical Latin acra (frequently from 11th cent. in British and continental sources; 9th cent. in a Belgian source as accrum) and Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French acre (12th cent.; now chiefly denoting either a measure of land in Normandy or the British measure); the standard modern spelling of the English word as acre rather than aker perhaps reflects the influence of French orthography.In Old English usually a strong masculine; isolated attestations of a weak genitive singular æcran and an apparently weak but irregular genitive plural æceran occur, but these may be transmission errors. Current standard pronunciation reflects open syllable lengthening in Middle English uninflected disyllabic forms (āker ); regional forms such as acker continue inflected forms that did not undergo the lengthening. The word occurs early in place names, as Bean eccer (field name), Little Chart, Kent (843; now Benacre), Acre , Norfolk (1086; now South Acre), Benagra , Suffolk (1086; now Benacre), etc. It has been suggested that in early settlement names the word typically refers to newly cultivated ground; see M. Gelling & A. Cole Landscape of Place-names (2000) 263–6. A few place names (all from the north-west midlands) appear to show reflexes of (irregular) Old English forms with palatalization and assibilation of the medial /k/ (compare discussion at acorn n.), as Clyuacher, south Lancashire, literally ‘cliff acre’ (1246; 1196 as Clivercher; also Clyuaker (1246); now Cliviger), Alsacher, Cheshire, literally ‘Ælle's acre’ (1285; 1086 as Eleacier; also Alsacre (1307); now Alsager); see further E. Ekwall in Beiblatt zur Anglia 32 (1921) 156–60, D. Mills Place-names Lancs. (1976) 40.