plough
UK/plaʊ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/plæɔ/
plough noun: a device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting. Also the ellipsis of snowplough.
Noun
plough (plural ploughs)
- A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.
- Meronyms: ploughshare, plowshare, share, moldboard, mouldboard, coulter, colter, jointer, chisel, ploughbeam, beam, ploughstaff, staff, hake
- The horse-drawn plough had a tremendous impact on agriculture.
- Synonyms:
- sull
- A joiner's plane for making grooves.
- A bookbinder's implement for trimming or shaving off the edges of books.
- The use of a plough; tillage.
- 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.1919, Commonwealth Shipping Committee, Report, volume 8, page 47
- A yoga pose resembling a traditional plough, halāsana.
Verb
plough (third-person singular simple present ploughs, present participle ploughing, simple past and past participle ploughed)
- To use a plough on soil to prepare for planting.
- I've still got to plough that field.
- That there is and from time immemorial has been within that part of the parish called Mablethorpe St. Mary's a laudable custom that, if any outdweller take ancient pasture ground, he shall pay a modus of 4d. an acre, and so in proportion, on the 1st of August, in lieu of all manner of tithe; and...1917, The English Reports: Exchequer, page 789
- To use a plough.
- Some days I have to plough from sunrise to sunset.
- To move with force.
- Trucks ploughed through the water to ferry flood victims to safety.
- Wolves continued to plough forward as young Belgian midfielder Mujangi Bia and Ronald Zubar both hit shots wide from good positions.2011 January 18, “Wolverhampton 5 - 0 Doncaster”, in BBC
- To knock over or run over (someone) without stopping.
- My brother ploughed me over.
- Three people were ploughed down when he lost control of the truck.
- To furrow; to make furrows, grooves, or ridges in.
- Let patient Octavia plough thy visage up / With her prepared nails.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- To run through, as in sailing.
- With speed we plough the watery way.1725, Homer, “Book II”, in [William Broome], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
- To trim, or shave off the edges of, as a book or paper, with a plough.
- To cut a groove in, as in a plank, or the edge of a board; especially, a rectangular groove to receive the end of a shelf or tread, the edge of a panel, a tongue, etc.
- To fail (a student).
- The good Professor scolded, predicted that they would all be either gulfed or ploughed.1863, Henry Kingsley, Austin Elliot, page 123
- You see, Miss Dodd, an university examination consists of several items: neglect but one, and Crichton himself would be ploughed; because brilliancy in your other papers is not allowed to count; that is how the most distinguished man of our day got ploughed for Smalls.1863, Charles Reade, Hard Cash
- To sexually penetrate, typically in a vigorous manner.
- I love just getting ploughed face down on my bed.
- If you don't use rubbers when you're plowing someone's throat, don't bother answering this ad.1990 February 11, “Working Up An Appetite (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 30, page 13
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Plough
the Plough
- The brightest seven stars of the constellation Ursa Major. They are Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Dubhe, Merak, and Phecda.
- Later on, as I walked home / The Plough was showing, and Orion1998, Belle and Sebastian, “Ease Your Feet in the Sea”, in The Boy with the Arab Strap
- Synonyms:
- Big Dipper, Charles' Wain, Drinking Gourd, Northern Ladle, Northern Waggoner, Wain, triones, septentriones
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Plough
Plough (plural Ploughs)
- A surname.
Also used as
plough is also the ellipsis of snowplough.
plough is also the alternative form of Plough.
plough is also the alternative form of ploughland.
plough meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
plough in Hindi
- device pulled through the ground
- हल hal, नांगल nāṅgal
- use a plough on soil to prepare for planting
- हल चलाना hal calānā
plough in Tamil
- device pulled through the ground
- ஏர் ēr, கலப்பை kalappai, ஞாஞ்சில் ñāñcil, உழுபடை uḻupaṭai
- use a plough on soil to prepare for planting
- உழு uḻu
- use a plough
- உழு uḻu
plough in Marathi
- device pulled through the ground
- नांगर nāṅgar, अऊत aūt, हल hal
- use a plough on soil to prepare for planting
- नांगरणे nāṅgarṇe
plough in Urdu
- device pulled through the ground
- ہل hal, نانگل nāṅgal
- use a plough on soil to prepare for planting
- ہل چلانا hal calānā
More languagesFewer languages
- plough in Bengali
- লাঙল, লাঙ্গল
- plough in Telugu
- నాగలి nāgali, గొర్రు gorru, దున్ను dunnu
- plough in Malayalam
- കലപ്പ kalappa, ഉഴുക uḻuka
- plough in Kannada
- ನೇಗಿಲು
- plough in Gujarati
- હળ haḷ
- plough in Sanskrit
- हल hala, लाङ्गल lāṅgala
- plough in Assamese
- নাঙল naṅol, হাল hal, হাল বোৱা hal büa
- plough in Nepali
- जुताई गर्न, जोताइ गर्न
- plough in Tagalog
- araro
- plough in Arabic
- مِحْرَاث miḥrāṯ, حَرَثَ ḥaraṯa
- plough in Malay
- bajak
- plough in Indonesian
- bajak, waluku
- plough in Persian
- خیش xiš, گاوآهن gâv-âhan, شخم زدن šoxm zadan
- plough in Thai
- ไถ tǎi
- plough in Vietnamese
- cày
- plough in Myanmar
- ထယ် htai, ထယ်ထိုး htaihtui:, ခွဲ hkwai:, ထွန် htwan
Examples of plough in a sentence
- 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.
- It ploughed through the boundary fence, but thankfully stopped short of the railway and the 1,500V overhead wires.2020 December 30, Tim Dunn, “The railway's mechanical marvels”, in Rail, page 58, photo caption:
- I knew one of that lot at Corpus; in fact, we were crammed by the same tutor for "smalls," and both got ploughed.1895, Roger Pocock, The Rules of the Game:
Synonyms of plough
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of plough
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | ploughs |
| alternative US | plow |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | ploughs |
| present participle | ploughing |
| past participle | ploughed |
| past | ploughed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Ploughs |
Origin of plough
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, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish plog, Icelandic plógur. Replaced Old English sulh (“plough, furrow”); see sullow.
From plough, a metonymic occupational surname for a plowwright or plowman.
Words formed from plough
- ard plough
- breastplough
- fire-plough
- gangplough
- ice plough
- mine plough
- mole plough
- mouldboard plough
- plough-alms
- plough-bote
- ploughbote
- ploughboy
- ploughgirl
- ploughhead
- ploughhorse
- plough iron
- plough jockey
- ploughland
- ploughless
- ploughlike
- ploughman
- plough paddle
- ploughpan
- ploughperson
- ploughpoint
- ploughshare
- plough stop
- ploughtail
- plough-tree
- ploughwise
- ploughwoman
- ploughzone
- pluff mud
- pulley-plough
- put one's hand to the plough
- rain follows the plough
- ridge plough
- Scotch plough
- Scots plough
- seeding plough
- snowplough
- snow plough
- sodbuster plough
- swing plough
- trench-plough
- turnplough
- under the plough
- wheel plough
- overplough
- ploughability
- ploughable
- plough ahead
- plough a lonely furrow
- plough back
- plough down
- plough in
- plough into
- plough money
- plough on
- plough one's own furrow
Phrases with plough
- plough up
- foot plough
- gang plough
- plough over
- heavy plough
- light plough
- plough irons
- plough staff
- plough stops
- plough under
- Plough Monday
- plough moneys
15 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with plough
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about plough
- What does plough mean?
- Plough means a device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.
- What is plough in Hindi?
- Plough in Hindi is हल (hal), नांगल (nāṅgal), हल चलाना (hal calānā). See Plough meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use plough in a sentence?
- 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.
- What part of speech is plough?
- Plough can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce plough?
- Plough is pronounced /plaʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of plough?
- The plural of plough is ploughs.
Words near plough in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: plough (page history and authors); Plough (page history and authors); plough (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plough (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plough (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-plough.ogg.
Cite this entry: “plough.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plough. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.