starve-acre
starve-acre noun: a type of crowfoot Ranunculus arvensis, known for growing on impoverished soil.
Noun
starve-acre (uncountable)
- A type of crowfoot Ranunculus arvensis, known for growing on impoverished soil.
- Some sandy soils are much overrun with the wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum), provincially called " rump," while the clays are swarmed with starve-acre (Ranunculus arvensis), and the clivers or burrs (Galium aparine), which are very troublesome to separate from the grain when winnowed.1855, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, page 207
- It seems that a particularly tiresome form of rauunculus, well described by the nickname of “starve-acre," can be cxterminated with dressings of sulphate of ammonia, and that this method is equally efficacious in ridding land of the picturesque but unprofitable poppy. Where there is more...1922, Industrial & Mining Standard, page 500
Adjective
starve-acre (comparative more starve-acre, superlative most starve-acre)
- Pertaining to or characteristic of unproductive, impoverished soil.
- There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of Flintcomb-Ash farm as a starve-acre place.1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'urbervilles
- They'd grown up together, had seen a lot of life, and were mostly inseparable, through six decades of raven, starve-acre days.2004, James Everett Kibler, Walking Toward Home, →ISBN, page 35
Examples of starve-acre in a sentence
- Where there is more starve-acre than grass, the farmer pays twice his nominal rent, and is otherwise wasting money by growing weeds on his pasture.1922, Industrial & Mining Standard, page 500:
- It is quite common for farmers to use cereal grains for seed which contain weed seeds, e.g. starve-acre (ranunculus arvensis), docks, wild oats, rye-like brome (bromus secolinus), etc.1925, The Farmer and stockbreeder year book and country gentleman's almanack:
Forms of starve-acre
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | starveacre |
| alternative form | starve acre |
| alternative form | stave-acre |
| alternative form | stave acre |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more starve-acre |
| superlative | most starve-acre |
Questions about starve-acre
- What does starve-acre mean?
- Starve-acre means a type of crowfoot Ranunculus arvensis, known for growing on impoverished soil.
- How do you use starve-acre in a sentence?
- Where there is more starve-acre than grass, the farmer pays twice his nominal rent, and is otherwise wasting money by growing weeds on his pasture.
- What part of speech is starve-acre?
- Starve-acre can be a noun or an adjective.
Words near starve-acre in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: starve-acre (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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