plough
pronunciation
How to pronounce plough in British English:
UK [plaʊ]
How to pronounce plough in American English:
US [plaʊ]
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- Noun:
- a farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing
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- Verb:
- move in a way resembling that of a plow cutting into or going through the soil
- to break and turn over earth especially with a plow
Word Origin
- plough
- plough: [OE] Plough was not the original English word for an ‘implement for turning over the soil’. That was Old English sulh, a relative of Latin sulcus ‘furrow’. Plough was borrowed in the 10th century from Old Norse plógr, a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *plōgaz. And this in turn was derived from a base *plōgacquired from one of the ancient Indo-European languages of northern Italy (source also of Latin plaustrum ‘wagon’). The earliest record we have of the word being used for the characteristically shaped group of seven stars in Ursa major is from early 16th-century Scotland.
- plough
- alternative spelling of plow. Related: Ploughed; ploughing.
Example
- 1. The plough was heavier than the tools formerly used by farmers .
- 2. Professional lobbyists willing to plough through the process therefore often have a big advantage .
- 3. During the first world war , british soldiers in the trenches became convinced that the french farmers who continued to plough their fields behind british lines were secretly signalling the german artillery .
- 4. With the advent of the plough , however , farming became the work of men .
- 5. To guide the plough , to bind the sheaves , is joy .