arable, erable

[In Fr. arable; Ital. arabile; Lat. arabilis = that may be ploughed; aro = Gr. ἀρόω ( αroō ) = to plough. In Wel. arad is a plough, and ar = arable land; Gael. ar = a plough; Irish irain = to plough.] Capable of being ploughed. Applied to land which may profitably be ploughed, with the view of being sown with cereal or other crops. It is contradistinguished from land not worth ploughing, but which it is thought better to leave in gra pasturage, if not even in wood and moor. "The arable land and pasture land were not supposed by the best political arithmeticians of that age to amount to much more than half the area of the kingdom."-Macaulay: Hist . Eng . , ch. iii. Ar-a-bo, in compos. = connected with the IMG:content-0685.jpg:[graphic] Arabs.