are
UK /ɛə/ · US /ɛəɹ/ noun, proper noun
Also a form of be
- noun (rare) An accepted (but deprecated and rarely used) metric unit of area equal to 100 square metres, or a former unit of approximately the same extent. Symbol: a.
- proper noun A village in Saaremaa, Saare County, Estonia.
- proper noun A municipality, locality, and ski resort in Jämtland, Sweden.
Synonyms
Etymology
From French are.
From Middle English aren, from Old English (Anglian) earun, earon (“are”, plural). Possibly reinforced by the Old Norse plural forms in er-, this displaced the alternative forms Old English sind and bēoþ. In the second person singular it displaced archaic art. Further etymology controversial:
* The English forms, as well as the Old Swedish forms in ær-, could reflect Proto-Germanic preterite-present *ōr ~ *arum, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃e-h₃ór-h₂e (“I have risen”, perfect).
* Since they are not the expected outcomes of the Proto-Germanic forms of *wesaną (“to be”) in *iz-, they would have to be irregular alterations. For Seebold this explanation is still preferable as similar variants in other verbs are not uncommon.
From the phonetic similarity between our and are in many English dialects (both /ɑː(ɹ)/).
Borrowed from Estonian Are.
Webster’s 1913
- The present indicative plural of the substantive verb to be; but etymologically a different word from be, or was. Am, art, are, and is, all come from the root as.
- noun The unit of superficial measure, being a square of which each side is ten meters in length; 100 square meters, or about 119.6 square yards.
Etymology [AS. (Northumbrian) aron, akin to the 1st pers. pl. forms, Icel. erum, Goth. sijum, L. sumus, Gr. smas; all from a root as. Am and Is, and cf. Be.]
Etymology [F., fr. L. area. See Area.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “are”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details