Library / English Dictionary

PLOUGH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing

Synonyms:

plough; plow

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("plough" is a kind of...):

tool (an implement used in the practice of a vocation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "plough"):

bull tongue (a heavy plow with a single wide blade; used chiefly in cotton fields)

moldboard plow; mouldboard plough (plow that has a moldboard)

Derivation:

plough (to break and turn over earth especially with a plow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A group of seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major

Synonyms:

Big Dipper; Charles's Wain; Dipper; Plough; Wagon; Wain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

asterism ((astronomy) a cluster of stars (or a small constellation))

Holonyms ("Plough" is a part of...):

Great Bear; Ursa Major (a constellation outside the zodiac that rotates around the North Star)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

To break and turn over earth especially with a plow

Example:

turn the earth in the Spring

Synonyms:

plough; plow; turn

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "plough" is one way to...):

till (work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation)

"Plough" entails doing...:

cut into; delve; dig; turn over (turn up, loosen, or remove earth)

Domain category:

agriculture; farming; husbandry (the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "plough"):

ridge (plough alternate strips by throwing the furrow onto an unploughed strip)

disk; harrow (draw a harrow over (land))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

plough (a farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing)

ploughing (tilling the land with a plow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Move in a way resembling that of a plow cutting into or going through the soil

Example:

The ship plowed through the water

Synonyms:

plough; plow

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "plough" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Sentence frames:

Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

Methane is produced by bacteria that digest straw ploughed back into fields in paddy fields to enrich it.

(Course grains better than rice for health, environment, SciDev.Net)

Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of the footpaths it still lay as white as when it fell.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Winthrop, however, or its environs—for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home—was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Let them toil and swinken, and labor, and plough the land, and take wives to themselves—

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One year after abandonment, fields had, on average, 38% of the plant diversity and 34% of the plant productivity of the land that was never ploughed.

(Plant biodiversity struggles to return in wake of agricultural abandonment, National Science Foundation)

So the man took off his hat, and put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the road.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed down the sand, was helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among the trees.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And he was worth seeing, too, especially on a winter’s night when the red glare of the forge would beat upon his great muscles and upon the proud, hawk-face of Boy Jim as they heaved and swayed over some glowing plough coulter, framing themselves in sparks with every blow.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)