ARE

Definition

A unit of surface area originating in French law, defined as a square measuring 1076.441 square feet. The are is the base unit from which the more familiar hectare (100 ares) derives. Though rooted in the French metric system introduced in the late eighteenth century, the term appears in Anglo-American legal dictionaries primarily in the context of interpreting French legal instruments, property descriptions, and civil law documents that use surface measures foreign to the common law tradition.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An accepted but deprecated and rarely used metric unit of area equal to 100 square metres. Symbol: a. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not recognize "are" as a unit of measure; the entry treats it solely as the present indicative plural of the verb "to be," derived from the root "as." The gap here is directional: legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century recognized "are" as a technical French law term for a land measure, while Webster's 1913 ignored that meaning entirely. Researchers consulting general dictionaries of the period to gloss the term as it appears in legal documents would find nothing useful. Today's common usage has partially caught up — Wiktionary acknowledges the metric unit — but treats it as deprecated, while legal sources in the civil law tradition continue to use it in historical property instruments.

Common Confusion

"Are" and "acre" are occasionally conflated by researchers unfamiliar with French or civil law land descriptions. They are distinct: one are equals approximately 0.0247 acres. In Louisiana, Quebec, and other jurisdictions with French civil law heritage, historical property records may express acreage in ares or hectares, and mistaking the unit can produce significant errors in reconstructing property boundaries or calculating conveyance values. Additionally, "are" should not be confused with "area," which has its own distinct legal meanings (see RELATED TERMS).

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus are most likely to encounter "are" in one of three contexts: (1) French legal texts or translations of the Napoleonic codes; (2) Louisiana property records, notarial acts, and early American land grants in formerly French-controlled territories; and (3) English-language legal dictionaries that include it as a reference term for practitioners encountering civil law instruments. The primary research trap is unit conversion. A document describing a parcel as "twelve ares" is describing approximately 1,292 square feet per are — a relatively small plot. Researchers using the term to reconstruct historical land holdings must convert carefully and should note that pre-metric French land measures (the arpent, the perche, the toise) coexisted with the are during the transitional period following metrication, creating documents that mix systems. The Burrill entry in the corpus does not contain a direct definition of "are" as a land measure — its relevant passage concerns archival terminology (arcivum, archivum) and Greek magistrates, suggesting the term was captured in a partial or out-of-order digitization. Researchers relying on Burrill for this term will find nothing useful and should consult Black's or Rapalje & Lawrence instead. Jurisdictional variation is significant: in common law jurisdictions, the are has no legal force and appears only in translated or imported documents. In Louisiana and in Quebec law (beyond the Law Mind corpus), it retains historical relevance in property chain-of-title research.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both first and second editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence agree precisely on the definition: a surface measure in French law, square in form, equal to 1076.441 square feet. The consistency across sources reflects that this is a fixed technical conversion figure, not a term whose meaning evolved through common law interpretation. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the most useful context by immediately following the "are" entry with the entry for "AREA," distinguishing the unit of measure from the legal concept of area as an enclosed or open space. This sequencing is editorially helpful and suggests the compilers anticipated confusion between the two terms. Burrill's Law Dictionary does not contain a useful entry for "are" in this sense. The passage captured under that source in the corpus relates to archival law and Greek-Latin magistrate terminology — content that appears to precede or follow the relevant entry in the original volume. Researchers should treat Burrill as silent on this term. None of the historical dictionaries provide conversion to the metric system (100 square metres = 1 are), because they predate or were indifferent to metric harmonization. Modern researchers needing to work backward from metric descriptions to the historical English-foot equivalent should use the 100 square metre figure as the authoritative modern equivalent and treat the 1076.441 square feet figure as the period conversion.

Jurisdictional Note

The are as a legal unit of measure is most relevant in Louisiana, where French civil law heritage produced property instruments drafted in or translated from French. In common law states, the term appears only in translated documents or comparative law contexts and carries no independent legal significance. Researchers in Canadian legal history should note that Quebec notarial practice similarly employed French land measures, though that jurisdiction falls outside the core Law Mind corpus.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — French and Civil Law Measures See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Land Description and Conveyancing

Related Terms