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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
arable
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an arable farm (=a farm where crops are grown)
▪ Tractors represent the single biggest cost on most arable farms.
an arable field (=one used for growing crops)
▪ Barley was growing in the arable fields surrounding the castle.
an arable/agricultural crop (=grown on farm land)
▪ A lot of woodland has been cleared for arable crops.
arable land (=land that crops are grown on)
▪ Some pastures were converted into arable land.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
area
▪ Within the arable area the greatest changes have been the increase of cereals and the decline of the one-year clover ley.
▪ Altogether cereals account for 54 percent. of the total arable area.
▪ Almost at once a rapid shrinkage of the arable area began.
crop
▪ Each family is provided with 3.5 ha of land of which 1 ha is used for rain-fed arable crops.
▪ Modern farming methods, particularly in arable crop fields, were thought to be responsible for the declines.
▪ Organic manures as nutrient sources-how best to make the most of organic manures and slurry in arable crop rotations.
farm
▪ The small village centre is surrounded by arable farms.
▪ Adrian Denham says the soil on his Warwickshire arable farm doesn't vary from one end of the field to the other.
farmer
▪ The support policy favours big arable farmers.
▪ Good arable farmers grubbed them up.
▪ But arable farmers, particularly in East Anglia, have a lot to be positive about.
▪ Most arable farmers are nothing more than basic commodity producers.
▪ Perhaps, by not giving us extra cash, Nick Brown has done arable farmers a favour.
▪ However arable farmers have fewer restraints on when they can inject.
farming
▪ The Thatcher government has opposed planning controls over agriculture that could have stopped the spread of intensive arable farming.
▪ These were in contrast to upland permanent pasture, where arable farming could only be undertaken infrequently, in special circumstances.
▪ It was no accident that a good many towns were sited on the borderline between arable farming and pastoral regions.
▪ The hedgerows and pasture where the owls hunt their prey are disappearing as farmers create bigger fields for intensive arable farming.
▪ In the best cereal-growing areas, arable farming may dominate the scene, with animals and grass taking second place.
▪ In the steepest, wettest areas, stock-rearing takes complete precedence, and little, if any, arable farming is undertaken.
field
▪ I avoid fields used for livestock, sticking to the arable field edges and woods.
▪ Of all counties the one most affected by the transformation of the open arable fields was Northamptonshire.
▪ It lies happily stranded across arable fields, beside deep woods on the edge of Badminton Park.
▪ In the arable fields the same crops were grown throughout a field and the task of harvesting was undertaken communally.
▪ Greater agricultural mechanisation has led to considerable modification of this landscape and larger arable fields now occur in the area.
▪ The conversion of the former arable fields to small enclosed fields of pasture had therefore two visible effects on the landscape.
land
▪ The path turned inland and met the road to Sandweg which cut through arable land, punctuated by low, brooding barns.
▪ But cold weather and a scarcity of food on arable land usually brings numbers down with the onset of winter.
▪ In early times, farmers were expected to grow a quarter acre of flax for one acre of arable land.
▪ Enclosure Only half the arable land was still open fields in 1700.
▪ Under the latter system arable land was put under grass for a long period after which it was returned to arable.
▪ This ignored the fact that many had been created out of poor arable land or even poorer scrub.
▪ Conflicting views' Of course arable land in some places is going out of cultivation because of erosion and other destructive forces.
▪ Both meadow and arable land was allocated in this way.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Accountants Touche Ross estimated that the increase in the price of diesel would add about £1 an acre to arable farming costs.
▪ Altogether cereals account for 54 percent. of the total arable area.
▪ Each family is provided with 3.5 ha of land of which 1 ha is used for rain-fed arable crops.
▪ Enclosure Only half the arable land was still open fields in 1700.
▪ In consequence, enclosure of arable was now creating more social problems than it could solve.
▪ Moreover, the arable land is more suited to collective as opposed to subsistence farming.
▪ Part of the arable soil still lies fallow.
▪ The potential economic damage is not restricted to arable farming.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Arable

Arable \Ar"a*ble\, a. [F. arable, L. arabilis, fr. arare to plow, akin to Gr. ?, E. ear, to plow. See Earable.] Fit for plowing or tillage; -- hence, often applied to land which has been plowed or tilled.

Arable

Arable \Ar"a*ble\, n. Arable land; plow land.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
arable

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" (cognates: 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"). By late 18c. it replaced native erable, from Old English erian "to plow," from the same PIE source.

Wiktionary
arable

a. 1 (label en agriculture of land) able to be plowed or tilled, capable of growing crops (traditionally contrasted with (term: pasturable) lands such as heaths). 2 (label en agriculture NGO jargon of land) Under cultivation (within any quinquennial period) for the production of crops sown and harvested within the same agricultural year (contrasted with (term: permanent)''ly-cropped'' lands such as orchards).

WordNet
arable

adj. (of farmland) capable of being farmed productively [syn: cultivable, cultivatable, tillable]

Wikipedia
Arable

Arable relates to the growing of crops:

  • Arable farming or agronomy, the cultivation of field crops
  • Arable land, land upon which crops are cultivated
  • Arable crops program, a consolidated support system operated under the EU Common Agricultural Policy
  • Fivehead Arable Fields, a Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, England

Usage examples of "arable".

Now and then a much larger flock comes down into the plain, wheeling to and fro, and presently descending upon an arable field, where they cover the ground.

Though watery, on account of the artificial drains from the arable fields, the spot is on much higher ground than the brook, and it is a little singular that while reeds flourish in this place they are not to be found by the brook.

The appearance of the open arable field over which I was looking changed as it approached.

Still another shines at night in an open arable field, where is a barn.

I found attacking the missel-thrushes are situate at the edge of extensive arable fields.

One afternoon there rose up a flock of rooks out of a large oak tree standing separate in the midst of an arable field which was then at last being ploughed.

But, then, the sheep-farmer has to occupy a certain proportion of arable land as well as pasture, and here his heavy losses mainly occur.

Six billion mouths to feed on a world with shrinking arable land and resources.

He knew that Seakeepdale consisted of all this now visible to him and twice again as much land, but only this one vale was arable to any large extent or permanently inhabited.

Its territory was vast, aye, but it was poor in arable land, as Una had admitted from the outset, the most of that and all of the best being centered in the valley guarded by her round tower.

Like an Edenist habitat, nobody lived on the cavern floor itself, it was a communal park and arable farm.

There was neither arable land nor implements to grow anything like adequate crops.

Large tracts of country about here once laid out for arable are now converted into grazing grounds, for the number of cattle is yearly on the increase.

It will open up the forests, the arable country land, the cattle-breeding districts, and, above all, the mineral deposits.

The Siberian line is designed to run through the arable lands of the fertile zone.