ploughing

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plow

also plough (plou)

1. A farm implement consisting of a strong blade at the end of a beam, usually hitched to a draft team or motor vehicle and used for breaking up soil and cutting furrows in preparation for sowing.

2. An implement or machine designed to move earth, snow, or other material by means of a strong blade.

3. Plow See Big Dipper.

v. plowed, plow·ing, plows also ploughed or plough·ing or ploughs

v.tr.

a. To break and turn over (earth) with a plow.

b. To form (a furrow, for example) with a plow.

c. To form furrows in with a plow: plow a field.

d. To form wrinkles or creases in: His forehead was plowed with lines of stress.

a. To move or clear (snow, for example) by means of a plow.

b. To clear (an area) of snow or other material by means of a plow.

3. To make or form with driving force: I plowed my way through the crowd.

4. To progress through (water): plow the high seas.

5. Vulgar Slang To have intercourse with (another). Used of a man.

v.intr.

1. To break and turn up earth with a plow.

2. To move or clear material such as snow with a plow.

3. To admit of plowing: Rocky earth plows poorly.

4. To move or progress with driving force: The ball carrier plowed through the defensive line.

5. To proceed laboriously; plod: plowed through the backlog of work.

Phrasal Verbs:

plow back

To reinvest (earnings or profits) in one's business.

plow in

To block or isolate by plowing snow across ways of egress.

plow into Informal

1. To strike with force: The van plowed into the hydrant.

2. To begin to eat (food) with eagerness.

plow under

1. To turn or force (crops or manure, for example) into the soil with a plow.

2. To overwhelm, as with burdens: was plowed under with work.

[Middle English plough, plouw, from Old English plōh, plōg, plow, plowland.]

plow′a·ble adj.

plow′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ploughing

(ˈplaʊɪŋ) or

plowing

(Agriculture) the act of ploughing a field

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

ploughing - tilling the land with a plow; "he hired someone to do the plowing for him"

plowing

tilling - cultivation of the land in order to raise crops

Translations

lavoro campestre

ploughing

plowing (US) [ˈplaʊɪŋ] N → arada f
ploughing back of profits → reinversión f de ganancias

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

ploughing

, (US) plowing

n → Pflügen nt; the ploughing back of profits into the company → die Reinvestierung von Gewinnen in die Firma

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

ploughing

[ˈplaʊɪŋ] plowing (Am) n → aratura

References in classic literature ?

She greeted me gaily, and began at once to tell me how much ploughing she had done that day.

Antonia and Ambrosch were talking in Bohemian; disputing about which of them had done more ploughing that day.

If I rode over to see her where she was ploughing, she stopped at the end of a row to chat for a moment, then gripped her plough-handles, clucked to her team, and waded on down the furrow, making me feel that she was now grown up and had no time for me.

View in context

(10), begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set (11).

448-457) Mark, when you hear the voice of the crane (17) who cries year by year from the clouds above, for she give the signal for ploughing and shows the season of rainy winter; but she vexes the heart of the man who has no oxen.

458-464) So soon as the time for ploughing is proclaimed to men, then make haste, you and your slaves alike, in wet and in dry, to plough in the season for ploughing, and bestir yourself early in the morning so that your fields may be full.

465-478) Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps.

View in context

It was on a hot day, and my father was ploughing in the field.

View in context

And the ploughing of the further land to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow.

He was not put out of temper even by the sight of the peasants' horses and colts trampling down his young grass (he told a peasant he met to drive them out), nor by the sarcastic and stupid reply of the peasant Ipat, whom he met on the way, and asked, "Well, Ipat, shall we soon be sowing?" "We must get the ploughing done first, Konstantin Dmitrievitch," answered Ipat.

View in context

Scotland's ploughing champions have travelled to the US state of Minnesota to take on global rivals for the right to be crowned best in the world.

Ploughers line up for prizes

This year's Royal Ploughing Ceremony on May 22 will be held in Takeo for the first time since the Prince Norodom Sihanouk government was overthrown in a coup in 1970, with the provincial governor and his wife chosen by the King to perform the tilling and sowing rituals.