arpent
Americannoun
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arpents
plural
noun
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a former French unit of length equal to 190 feet (approximately 58 metres)
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an old French unit of land area equal to about one acre: still used in Quebec and Louisiana
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of arpent
1570–80; < Middle French < Latin arepennis half-acre < Gaulish; akin to MIr airchenn unit of area
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
An arpent of ground for corn rents at from thirty to thirty-six livres.
From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2 by Thomas Jefferson Randolph
An arpent yields one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal.
From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2 by Thomas Jefferson Randolph
Each grant varied from sixteen arpents—an arpent being about five-sixths of an English acre—by fifty, to ten leagues by twelve.
From Lord Elgin by Sir John George Bourinot
To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the perpetual rent of half a sou for each arpent.
From France and England in North America; a Series of Historical Narratives — Part 3 by Francis Parkman
It is estimated that sales are made once in eighty years; these rights bear on 1,356 arpents which are worth, the best, 192 livres per arpent the second best, 110 livres, the poorest, 75 livres.
From The Ancient Regime by John Durand
Stengel's critique neatly encapsulates a view that has remained unchanged since Voltaire dismissed North America as "a few arpents of snow."
From Time Magazine Archive
The 1681 census discloses that Jean and Marguerite owned two guns, their 30 arpents, eight cattle, and had four children at home.
From Time Magazine Archive
To each was assigned, moreover, sixty arpents of land beyond the limits of the village, with the perpetual rent of half a sou for each arpent.
From France and England in North America; a Series of Historical Narratives — Part 3 by Francis Parkman
In the time of Honorius, in Campania five hundred thousand arpents were discharged from the fiscus as deserted and waste.
From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by William Graham Sumner
Thus for a farm of 100 acres, with two arpents of frontage, a habitant might pay $1.00 in cash and two capons.
From A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 by George McKinnon Wrong
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
