Word.ws English Dictionary

plod

UK/plɒd//plɑd/

plod noun: a slow or labored walk or other motion or activity.

Noun (1)

plod (uncountable)

  1. A slow or labored walk or other motion or activity.
    • We started at a brisk walk and ended at a plod.
    • Germany can’t afford to stick to the stately plod into decline that Merkel initiated any longer. Merz will have to act fast, and break things to pull the country out of the quagmire it finds itself in.2025 February 23, Lisa Haseldine, “Whatever happens next, Merkelism is finished”, in The Telegraph, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2025

Verb

plod (third-person singular simple present plods, present participle plodding, simple past and past participle plodded)

  1. (intransitive) To walk or move slowly and heavily or laboriously (+ on, through, over).
    • The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
      Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 50”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC
    • I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea chest following behind him in a handbarrow;1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 1, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part I (The Old Buccaneer), page 1
  2. (transitive) To trudge over or through.
    • Quest[ion]. Where was Ioseph?
      Answ[er]. It may be, he was playing the Carpenter abrode for all their three livings, but sure it is, he was not idlely plodding the streetes, much lesse tipling in the Taverne with our idle swingers.1596, Henoch Clapham, A Briefe of the Bible, Edinburgh: Robert Walde-grave, page 127
    • […] Speed thou to Lombard-street,
      Or plod the gambling 'Change with busy feet,
      'Midst Bulls and Bears some false report to spread,1799, Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Love of Gain, London: J. Bell, p. 50, lines 449-451
  3. (intransitive) To toil; to drudge; especially, to study laboriously and patiently.
    • On Sundays I keep plodding along at my job.
    • Poore plodding schoolemen, they are farre too low,
      which by probations, rules and axiom’s goe,
      He must be still familiar with the skyes,
      which notes the reuolutions of thine eyes;1597, Michael Drayton, “Edward the fourth to Shores wife” in Englands Heroicall Epistles, London: N. Ling
  4. (transitive) To extrude (soap, margarine, etc.) through a die plate so it can be cut into billets.

Noun (2)

plod (plural plods)

  1. (obsolete) A puddle.

Noun (3)

plod (usually uncountable, plural plods)

  1. (UK, derogatory, mildly, usually, with-definite-article) the police, police officers
    Synonyms:
    police
  2. (UK, countable, derogatory, mildly, usually) a police officer, especially a low-ranking one.
    Synonyms:
    police officer

plod meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

plod in Hindi

to walk slowly
पाँव घसीटना pā̃v ghasīṭnā, रेंगना reṅgnā

plod in Tamil

to walk slowly
உந்துதல் untutal, நகர்தல் nakartal

plod in Bengali

অলসভাবে, কষ্টে হাঁটা

plod in Malayalam

വിഷമിച്ചു നടക്കുക, വളരെ ബുദ്ധിമുട്ടിമുന്നോട്ടു നീങ്ങുക, പണിപ്പെട്ടു നടക്കുക, പ്രയത്നിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
plod in Kannada
ಮೆಲ್ಲ ನಡೆ, ಮೆಲ್ಲ ಮಾಡು, ಪ್ರಯಾಸದಿಂದ ನಡೆ, ಕಷ್ಟದಿಂದ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಯಿಡು

Examples of plod in a sentence

  • Wipe your shoes on the doormat before you start plodding around in the house.
  • Germany can’t afford to stick to the stately plod into decline that Merkel initiated any longer.
  • They are hundreds of thousands of years old and are plodding towards extinction.

All 17 example sentences with plod

Synonyms of plod

Forms of plod

Verb
third-person singular presentplods
present participleplodding
past participleplodded
pastplodded
Noun
pluralplods

Origin of plod

From Middle English *plodden (found only in derivative plodder), probably originally a splash through water and mud, from plodde, pludde (“a puddle”) (whence modern plud). Compare Scots plod, plodge, plodder, dialectal Dutch plodden, plodderen, dialectal German ploddern, Danish pladder (“mire”).

From Middle English plod. Cognate with Danish pladder (“mire”).

From PC Plod.

Words formed from plod

Phrases with plod

Words that rhyme with plod

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about plod

What does plod mean?
Plod means a slow or labored walk or other motion or activity.
What is plod in Hindi?
Plod in Hindi is पाँव घसीटना (pā̃v ghasīṭnā), रेंगना (reṅgnā). See Plod meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is plod?
Plod can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce plod?
Plod is pronounced /plɒd/ (UK).
What is the plural of plod?
The plural of plod is plods.

Words near plod in the dictionary

  1. plocinine
  2. Plockton
  3. plocoid
  4. plocoside
  5. plocozoan
  6. plod
  7. Plodarisch
  8. plodded
  9. plodder
  10. plodders
  11. plodding

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plod (page history and authors); plod (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plod (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plod (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-plod.ogg.

Cite this entry: “plod.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plod. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.