FromRussianдесяти́на(desjatína,“tenth, tithe”).
dessiatina (pluraldessiatinasordessiatiny)
- A Russian measure of land, roughly 1.1hectares.
1849 July, “The Observatory at Pulkowa”, inThe North American Review, volume69, number144:The tract of land given by the emperor contains five hundred and forty-five acres, (twentydessjatines,) being two thousand two hundred and five feet long, and one thousand five hundred and eighty-two wide at its greatest breadth.
1918, Leo Tolstoy, translated byAylmer and Louise Maude,Anna Karenina, Oxford, published1998, page166:I go shooting there every year, and it is worth five hundred roubles adesyatina cash down, and he is paying you two hundred on long term.
1973,Thomas Pynchon,Gravity's Rainbow:Clouds, some in very clear profile, black and jagged, sail in armadas towards the Asian arctic, above the sweepingdessiatinas of grasses[…]
1996,Orlando Figes,A People's Tragedy, Folio Society, published2013, page119:The average peasant allotment, at 2.6dessyatiny in 1900, was comparable in size to the typical smallholding in France or Germany.
a Russian measure of land
