Arable


capable of producing crops; suitable for farming; suited to the plow and for tillage:
arable land; arable soil.
land that can be or is cultivated.
Contemporary Examples

Water, food and arable land will be more scarce, cities more crowded and hunger more widespread.
Pope Francis Is Wrong About My Child-Free Life Amanda Marcotte June 5, 2014

You will, by accident listening to the show, become an expert-not-really in matters of arable farming, organic crops, and milking.
America, Presenting Your New Addiction: ‘The Archers’ Tim Teeman April 24, 2014

Historical Examples

We are going to argue that the Anglo-Saxons give 120 acres, arable acres, to the hide.
Domesday Book and Beyond Frederic William Maitland

Out of the arable land he took only what was his due, and refused to take more.
The Forged Coupon and Other Stories Leo Tolstoy

He has rescued some acres of arable land from the rage of the barren sea.
Library of the World’s Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 16 Various

The quantity of cereals has increased in proportion to the arable land.
The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know Thomas Forsyth Hunt

Hearne remarks that the explication of this word warranted by Sir E. Coke is “a wood grubbed up and turned to arable.”
Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 Various

Tusser also describes this use of land alternately as pasture and arable.
The Enclosures in England Harriett Bradley

What proportion of this area do you believe to be arable land of fair quality, including pasture that might be put under the plow?
Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, April 1899 Various

The Reservation contains 2,800 acres of woodland and arable soil.
On a Donkey’s Hurricane Deck R. Pitcher Woodward

adjective
(of land) being or capable of being tilled for the production of crops
of, relating to, or using such land: arable farming
noun
arable land or farming
adj.

early 15c., “suitable for plowing” (as opposed to pasture- or wood-land), from Old French arable (12c.), from Latin arabilis, from arare “to plow,” from PIE *are- “to plow” (cf. Greek aroun, Old Church Slavonic orja, Lithuanian ariu “to plow;” Gothic arjan, Old English erian, Middle Irish airim, Welsh arddu “to plow;” Old Norse arþr “a plow”). Replaced by late 18c. native erable, from Old English erian “to plow,” from the same PIE source.

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