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starve-acre. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Alternative forms
Noun
starve-acre (uncountable)
- A type of crowfoot Ranunculus arvensis, known for growing on impoverished soil.
1855, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, page 207: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.
1922, Industrial & Mining Standard, page 500: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 starve-acre than grass, the farmer pays twice his nominal rent, and is otherwise wasting money by growing weeds on his pasture.
1925, The Farmer and stockbreeder year book and country gentleman's almanack: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.
Adjective
starve-acre (comparative more starve-acre, superlative most starve-acre)
- Pertaining to or characteristic of unproductive, impoverished soil.
2004, James Everett Kibler, Walking Toward Home, →ISBN, page 35:They'd grown up together, had seen a lot of life, and were mostly inseparable, through six decades of raven, starve-acre days.
2011, John Rember, Mfa in a Box:I suggest that he was instead thinking about his birthplace, where, for a while, those infants did live to inherit the earth, at least the mined-out, falling-down, starve-acre part of it that was the town of Hailey.