Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun etc. See plow, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • See plow.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.
  • noun US A horse-drawn plow (as opposed to plow, used for the mechanical variety)
  • noun An alternative name for Ursa Major or the Great Bear.
  • verb transitive To use a plough on to prepare for planting.
  • verb intransitive To use a plough.
  • verb transitive, vulgar to fuck, to have sex with.
  • verb To move with force.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a group of seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major
  • verb move in a way resembling that of a plow cutting into or going through the soil
  • verb to break and turn over earth especially with a plow
  • noun a farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English plouh, plow, plouw, from Old English plōh ("hide of land, ploughland") and Old Norse plógr ("plough (the implement)"), both from Proto-Germanic *plōgaz, *plōguz (“plough”). Cognate with Scots pleuch, plou ("plough"), West Frisian ploege ("plough"), North Frisian plog ("plough"), Dutch ploeg ("plough"), Low German Ploog ("plough"), German Pflug ("plough"), Danish plov ("plough"), Icelandic plóg ("plough"). Replaced Old English sulh ("plough, furrow"); see sullow.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "It's great to be here. I thank you. Ah, I've been on the road doing comedy for ten years now, so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time."

    - Bill Hicks.

    July 7, 2008

  • "Most certainly Woods couldn't tell the future, he couldn't even tell the present. In peacetime he had been a farmhand, and had known the pleasure of having two great shire horses pulling his plough.

    I said, 'What's it like?'

    'Ploughing? 'Ow yew like to be eight hours a day looking at two great 'orses harses.'"

    - Spike Milligan, 'Mussolini: My Part In His Downfall.'

    April 19, 2009

  • plough is the UK spelling and plow is the US spelling. They are the same thing: a big knife for opening soil to admit seeds. The plough is pulled by an animal or mechanical device.

    December 22, 2024