Arura

Arura (Ancient Greek: ἄρουρα, romanized: aroura) is a Homeric Greek[1] word with original meaning "arable land", derived from the verb ἀρόω (aroō), "plough".[2] The word was also used generally for earth, land and father-land and in plural to describe corn-lands and fields.[3] The term arura was also used to describe a measure of land in ancient Egypt (similar in manner to the acre), a square of 100 Egyptian cubits each way.[4] This measures 2700m² or 2/3 of an acre.[5] The oldest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek a-ro-u-ra, written in Linear B syllabic script, originally meant "plough".[6]

## Other uses

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* Aruru, a Mesopotamian goddess associated with vegetation at some point conflated with Ninhursag
* 'Arura, a Palestinian village in the northern "West Bank".

## References

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1. ^ Iliad 11.68
2. ^ ἀρόω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
3. ^ ἄρουρα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
4. ^ Herodotus, 2.168, on Perseus
5. ^ "Household economics: Making ends meet" note 1.
6. ^ Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages

## External links

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* The dictionary definition of arura at Wiktionary