arpent

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: any of several French units of land area, varying by place and still encountered in records from Quebec and Louisiana

   The riverside grant comprised several thousand arpents of land.

2. 2
   noun

   historical: a French unit of length equal to one side of a square arpent, generally about 58 to 72 metres

   The early survey measured the river frontage in arpents rather than metres.

Borrowed from French arpent, from Late Latin arepennis, a measure of field area, itself from a Gaulish compound interpreted as the end or boundary of a field. Both the area and length represented by an arpent varied across regions and periods.

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