Rood

One-quarter of an acre, traditionally used for measuring small land plots and gardens.

A quarter of an acre, forty square perches, and the middle term of the system in which English land was recorded: acres, roods and perches, written in that order, so that 3-2-15 meant three acres, two roods and fifteen perches. The name repays attention. A rood was originally a rod or pole, the same object that gave the perch its name, so the area unit is called after the instrument used to measure it. The word survives in one other place, and most people meet it there first: the rood screen in a church, which takes its name from the crucifix mounted on it, a cross being a rood in the older sense of a pole or beam. A unit of farmland and a piece of church furniture, from the same root, by two entirely separate paths.