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arable

UK/ˈæɹəbl̩/US/ˈæɹəbl̩/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,943 of 15,258mostly written

Arable means suitable for ploughing and growing crops. Arable land, an arable farm, arable acreage.

It divides farming in two: arable land grows crops and pasture feeds animals, and which a field can be depends on the soil, the slope and the rain. Only about a tenth of the world's land surface is arable, and some of that is being lost to erosion.

Definitions of arable

  1. 1adjectivearableSuitable for ploughing and growing crops.C1

    “Most of the arable land in the valley is used to grow wheat and barley.”

arable is a quality of land.

Where it comes from

Latin arabilis comes from arare, to plough. It is related to the Greek and Old English words for ploughing.

  1. Latin

    arābilis

  2. Old French

    arable

  3. Middle French

    arable

  4. Middle English

    arable

  5. English, today

    arable

Built from

  • arō · Latin — plow
  • -bilis · Latin — able to be

From Middle English arable, from Middle French arable, from Old French arable, from Latin arābilis, formed from arō (“plow”) + -bilis (“able to be”). Cognate with earable.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Farm & Countryside

Practise this word

arable in the wild

  • Arable land is vulnerable to land degradation and some types of un-arable land can be enriched to create useful land.

    Arable land

  • Climate change and biodiversity loss are driving pressure on arable land.

    Arable land

  • The run rig system of tenure should not be confused with the agricultural practice known as rig and furrow, which produced permanent ridges in arable fields.

    Run rig

  • A field may also be an area left to lie fallow or as arable land.

    Field (agriculture)

  • Shinka has access to the Chach Interway, giving it access to Hazro Tehsil This area is considered to be arable land and good soil for farming.

    Shinka

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the -bilis family

bile

arable — used about once every 159,543 pages · #14,943 · point at the bar for the others