Acre
Acre names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Acre a unit customarily used in measuring land
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a unit customarily used in measuring land. The original meaning of the word is a field, pasture, or hunting ground. The historical acre of England was as much ground as a yoke of oxen could plow in a day. In the thirteenth century the acre was fixed by Parliament at 160 square rods or perches. This is still the legal measure in Great Britain and in America. As compared with this statute acre, the Scotch acre contains 1.27, the Irish acre, 1.62, the Welsh, .89, and the hectare of the metric system, 2.47 acres. A section of land, American survey, contains 640 acres and is one mile square.
Acre (1) Originally
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
(1) Originally, any field, whatever its superficial area. (2) From about the time of Edward I. its the word became more definite, and limits were prescribed by the Statutes 31 and 35 Edward I., and 24 Henry VIII. By the Act 5 George IV., the varying measures of the acre current in the kinguniform reduced to were dom one standard. The imperial acre contains 4,840 square yards, the Scottish one, 6,104.12789 square yards, and the Irish one, 7,840 square yards. The imperial nch is current in the United States. The old Roman jugerum, generally translated acre, was about five-eighths of the imperial acre.
Acre or ST. JEAN D'ACRE
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or ST. JEAN D'ACRE, a seaport of Syria, formerly called Ptolemais; on a promontory at the foot of Mount Carmel. It was taken by the first crusaders in 1104, retaken by the Saracens in 1187, recovered by the Christians under Richard Cœur de Lion, in 1191, and given to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1291 it again fell into the hands of the Saracens. Bonaparte attempted to storm this place in 1799, but retreated after a siege of 61 days. It was taken by Ibrahim Pasha, in 1832, and again by the combined English and Austrian squadrons, in 1840.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The measure itself has held: the imperial acre of 4,840 square yards that Collier's set out in 1921 is still the acre in use, though it is now defined by way of the metre, since the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 m. The regional variants the two accounts list — the Scotch, Irish and Welsh acres — have vanished from legal and everyday use, and the acre survives in Britain only as a supplementary unit alongside the hectare. The city has changed hands more than the measure: the "seaport of Syria" under Ottoman rule in 1921 passed to British Mandate Palestine and, since 1948, has been Akko in Israel, a town of some 50,000 with an Arab-majority Old City. That Crusader and Ottoman Old City — including vaulted halls of the Knights of St John the account mentions — was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.
Written for this edition, 2026.