[f. the sb.] trans. To sublet in conacre.
1839. Blackw. Mag., XLV. 764. The under-tenants conacred it out to tenants still more desperate than themselves.
1869. Echo, 28 Sept., 3/3. ‘Conacreing’ … is the subletting, at enormous rents, of their ground by small tenants to their still smaller brethren.
So Conacreism, the system of conacre. Conacrer, one who uses a piece of land on this system.
1847. Barmby, in Tait’s Mag., XIV. 267. An approximation to the Conacreism, and Middlemen, of starving Ireland.
1869. Echo, 28 Sept., 3/3. The conacrers, being too poor to buy manure, frequently burn the surface of the ground and so impoverish it for years.
