dunam

English

Etymology

From Hebrew דּוּנָם (dunam) or Arabic دُونُم (dūnum), from Turkish dönüm, from dönmek (“to turn”). A probable calque of Byzantine Greek στρέμμα (strémma, “stremma”, literally “that which is turned”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdʊn.əm/
• Rhymes: -ʊnəm

Noun

dunam (plural dunams)

1. (historical) An Ottoman Turkish unit of surface area nominally equal to 1,600 square (Turkish) paces but actually varied at a provincial and local level according to land quality to accommodate its colloquial sense of the amount of land able to be plowed in a day, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine stremma or English acre.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     You pay eight marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons.

2. A modern Turkish unit of surface area equal to a decare (1000 m²), equivalent to the modern Greek stremma.
3. Various other units in other areas of the former Ottoman Empire, usually equated to the decare but sometimes varying (as in Iraq, where it is 2500 m²).

Synonyms

• stremma, old stremma, Turkish stremma, Ottoman stremma

Anagrams

• Duman, Munda, mandu, maund, undam, unmad