| Homestead Act | |
| —n | |
| 1. | an act passed by the US Congress in 1862 making available to settlers 160-acre tracts of public land for cultivation |
| 2. | (in Canada) a similar act passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1872 |
A law passed in the 1860s that offered up to 160 acres of public land to any head of a family who paid a registration fee, lived on the land for five years, and cultivated it or built on it.