plough
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /plaʊ/
rhymes: -aʊ
Forms: form: ploughs
form: plow
Etymology: From Middle English plouh, plow, plugh(e), plough(e), 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, North Frisian plog, West Frisian ploech, Low German Ploog, Dutch ploeg, Russian плуг (plug), German Pflug, Danish plov, Swedish and Norwegian plog, Icelandic plógur. Replaced Old English sulh (“plough, furrow”); see sullow.
Senses: examples: text: Meronyms: ploughshare, plowshare, share, moldboard, mouldboard, coulter, colter, jointer, chisel, ploughbeam, beam, ploughstaff, staff, hake
text: The horse-drawn plough had a tremendous impact on agriculture.
text: The central theme of low-till agriculture is that the plough is not always necessary and that it should be used only when truly appropriate.
topics: agriculture
business
lifestyle
synonyms: sull
hypernyms: implement#Noun
glosses: A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.
examples: text: It's been three hours since a plough came through here, and now you can hardly even tell that it did! [the snow keeps falling heavily]
glosses: Any of several other tools or implements that cut and push material.
Ellipsis of snowplough.
glosses: Any of several other tools or implements that cut and push material.
A joiner's plane for making grooves.
glosses: Any of several other tools or implements that cut and push material.
A bookbinder's implement for trimming or shaving off the edges of books.
examples: text: If you get it early ploughed and it lies all winter possibly, you find it an advantage to give it a second plough; but it does not invariably follow that we plough twice for our green crop.
ref: 1919, Commonwealth Shipping Committee, Report, volume 8, page 47:
glosses: The use of a plough; tillage.
examples: text: Rising in the north-east fairly high in the sky, Arcturus may be found by following round the curve of the plough.
ref: 2004, Amazing Physics Quiz, →ISBN, page 32:
text: To many generations of rice farmers in rural Java, Indonesia, it was not the stars of Ursa Major that formed the plough, but the stars of Orion.
ref: 2005, Clive L. N. Ruggles, Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth, →ISBN:
text: Across the Atlantic, what we call the Big Dipper has been called many other names. In England, this grouping of stars is seen as the plough.
ref: 2007, Mike Lynch, Florida Starwatch, →ISBN, page 52:
text: Consider the Big Dipper, or as it is also known, the plough or the wagon.
ref: 2010, John Turner, Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Guide to Nature on Long Island, →ISBN:
glosses: Alternative form of Plough (Synonym of Ursa Major)
examples: c. 1350, Geoffrey Chaucer (attributed), The Tale of Gamelyn
Johan, mine eldest son, shall have plowes five.
synonyms: carucate
glosses: Alternative form of ploughland, an alternative name for a carucate or hide.
qualifier: yoga
glosses: A yoga pose resembling a traditional plough, halāsana.
Derived terms: ard plough
breastplough
fire-plough
gangplough
ice plough
mine plough
mole plough
mouldboard plough
plough-alms
ploughbote
plough-bote
ploughboy
ploughgirl
ploughhead
ploughhorse
plough iron
plough jockey
ploughland
ploughless
ploughlike
ploughman
ploughpan
ploughperson
ploughpoint
ploughshare
plough stop
ploughtail
plough-tree
ploughwise
ploughwoman
ploughzone
pluff mud
put one's hand to the plough
ridge plough
Scotch plough
Scots plough
seeding plough
snowplough
snow plough
sodbuster plough
swing plough
trench-plough
turnplough
wheel plough