fallow
/ˈfæləʊ/US/ˈfæloʊ/
fallow noun: ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.
Noun
fallow (countable and uncountable, plural fallows)
- Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.
- Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landskip round it measures,
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.1645, John Milton, L'Allegro
- Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
- Uncultivated land.
- The ploughing or tilling of land, without sowing it for a season.
- By a complete summer fallow, land is rendered tender and mellow. The fallow gives it a better tilth than can be given by a fallow crop.1832, Sir John Sinclair, The Code of Agriculture
Adjective (1)
fallow (comparative more fallow, superlative most fallow)
- Ploughed but left unseeded for more than one planting season.
- Left unworked and uncropped for some amount of time.
- Inactive; undeveloped.
- a fallow period in one's career
- After two more homeland hits and a fallow two years, Pickettywitch was parked and junked.1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 316
- Synonyms:
- abeyant
Verb
fallow (third-person singular simple present fallows, present participle fallowing, simple past and past participle fallowed)
- To make land fallow for agricultural purposes.
Adjective (2)
fallow (comparative more fallow, superlative most fallow)
fallow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
fallow in Tamil
- தரிசு நிலம், பயிரிடப்படாத நிலம், பயிரிடா நிலம், விடுதல், விட்டுவிடல், தரிசு
fallow in Urdu
- دھوکا باز, فریبی, غیرمزروعہ زمین, غلط, جھوٹا, کاذب
fallow in Bengali
- fallow, unploughed, uncultivated
- অকর্ষিত okorśito
- fallow, uncultivated, unploughed
- অকৃষ্ট ôkriśṭô
fallow in Malayalam
- വിതയ്ക്കാത്ത, പ്രയോഗത്തിൽ വരുത്താത്ത, തരിശിട്ടിരിക്കുന്ന, കൃഷിചെയ്യാതിട്ടിരിക്കുന്ന
More languagesFewer languages
- fallow in Kannada
- ಉಳದಿರುವ, ಹಡಿಲುಬಿಟ್ಟ, ಬೀಳುಬಿದ್ದ
- fallow in Sanskrit
- हरि hári
- fallow in Persian
- آیش âyeš
- Kashmiri
- درٛگُر dragur
Examples of fallow in a sentence
- The farmer manured his fallow field.
- Say hello to a phalanx of fellows whose phallophilia lies fallow on the hollow feather pillow.
- Fallow deer of trophy quality must develop palmation; there are herds where palmations are rare or non-existent.
Synonyms of fallow
Forms of fallow
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | fallows |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more fallow |
| superlative | most fallow |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | fallows |
| present participle | fallowing |
| past participle | fallowed |
| past | fallowed |
Origin of fallow
[Alt: A photograph of a ploughed field.] From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealh, fealg (“fallow land”), from Proto-West Germanic *falgu (compare Saterland Frisian Falge, West Frisian falig, felling, Dutch valg, German Felge), from Proto-Indo-European *polḱéh₂ (“arable land”) (compare Gaulish olca, Russian полоса́ (polosá)).
From Middle English falowen, falwen, from Old English fealgian (“to fallow; break up land”), from Proto-West Germanic *falgōn (“to fallow”). Cognate with Dutch valgen (“to plow lightly; fallow”), German Low German falgen (“to till; dig a hole”).
[Alt: A photograph of a light brown deer.] From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealu, from Proto-West Germanic *falu, from Proto-Germanic *falwaz (compare West Frisian feal, Dutch vaal, German falb, fahl, French fauve), from Proto-Indo-European *polwos (compare Lithuanian pal̃vas (“sallow, wan”), Russian поло́вый (polóvyj, “wan, light yellow”), Serbo-Croatian plâv (“blond, blue”), Ancient Greek πολιός (poliós, “grey”)), from Proto-Indo-European *pelH- (“pale, gray”).
Words formed from fallow
- fallowed
- fallower
- fallowing
- re-fallow
- summer-fallow
- thry-fallow
- trifallow
- twifallow
- twyfallow
- fallow deer
- bastard fallow
- cropped fallow
- dead-fallow
- ecofallow
- fallow-break
- fallowchat
- fallow crop
- fallow-field
- fallowfinch
- fallow ground
- fallow land
- fallow syndrome
- green fallow
- pin-fallow
- rag-fallow
- summer fallow
- winter fallow
- fallow chat
- fallow finch
- fallowist
- apple-fallow
- fallowness
- lay fallow
- lie fallow
Phrases with fallow
Words that rhyme with fallow
Questions about fallow
- What does fallow mean?
- Fallow means ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.
- What is fallow in Tamil?
- Fallow in Tamil is தரிசு நிலம், பயிரிடப்படாத நிலம், பயிரிடா நிலம். See Fallow meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is fallow?
- Fallow can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce fallow?
- Fallow is pronounced /ˈfæləʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of fallow?
- The plural of fallow is fallows.
Words near fallow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fallow (page history and authors); fallow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fallow (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অকর্ষিত (Bengali) (page history and authors); fallow (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fallow (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); हरि (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fallow.wav.
Cite this entry: “fallow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fallow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.