noun
- Plural of arpent; a unit of land measurement used historically in French-speaking regions, particularly in Canada and Louisiana, roughly equivalent to an acre.
Usage: historical; chiefly North American; archaic in modern usage
Examples
- The colonial land grant specified fifty arpents of fertile farmland.
- In old Quebec records, property boundaries were often measured in arpents.
- The plantation owner possessed several hundred arpents along the Mississippi River.
- French settlers in Louisiana divided their estates into arpents for inheritance purposes.