agrarian

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 4, 2024 is: agrarian uh-GRAIR-ee-un adjective What It Means Something described as agrarian has to do with farms and farming. // Joan hopes to leave city life behind and move to a more agrarian region where she plans to raise lambs and grow heirloom vegetables. cynosure in Context "In an interview, [cultural studies researcher, Toni] Smith said fantasizing about agrarian life is nothing new. History presents cyclical 'back-to-the-land' movements, from America’s early West-settling pioneers to the homesteaders of the Great Depression." — Hannah Macready, Ambrook Research, 17 Aug. 2023 Did You Know? 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 come 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 to the farmers who cultivate them.