Plough Meaning
/plaʊ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.
nounAny of several other tools or implements that cut and push material., Ellipsis of snowplough.
Sentence Examples
Better to have one plough going than two cradles.
He exchanged a plough for a sword.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The farmer used a heavy ____ to turn over the soil before planting.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The farmer used a horse-drawn ____ to turn the soil before planting the spring crops.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:
"Rising in the north-east fairly high in the sky, Arcturus may be found by following round the curve of the plough."
— 2004, Amazing Physics Quiz, →ISBN, page 32:
"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."
— 2005, Clive L. N. Ruggles, Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth, →ISBN:
"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."
— 2007, Mike Lynch, Florida Starwatch, →ISBN, page 52:
"Consider the Big Dipper, or as it is also known, the plough or the wagon."
— 2010, John Turner, Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Guide to Nature on Long Island, →ISBN:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The farmer used a heavy ____ to turn over the soil before planting.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The farmer used a horse-drawn ____ to turn the soil before planting the spring crops.