Library / English Dictionary

SOW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: sown   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An adult female hog

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

swine (stout-bodied short-legged omnivorous animals)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Introduce into an environment

Example:

sow suspicion or beliefs

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

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

broadcast; circularise; circularize; circulate; diffuse; disperse; disseminate; distribute; pass around; propagate; spread (cause to become widely known)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

sower (someone who sows)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Place (seeds) in or on the ground for future growth

Example:

She sowed sunflower seeds

Synonyms:

seed; sow

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

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

lay; place; pose; position; put; set (put into a certain place or abstract location)

Verb group:

inseminate; sow; sow in (place seeds in or on (the ground))

Domain category:

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

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

broadcast (sow over a wide area, especially by hand)

inseminate; sow; sow in (place seeds in or on (the ground))

scatter (sow by scattering)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They sow rye in the field

Derivation:

sower (someone who sows)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Place seeds in or on (the ground)

Example:

sow the ground with sunflower seeds

Synonyms:

inseminate; sow; sow in

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

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

seed; sow (place (seeds) in or on the ground for future growth)

Verb group:

seed; sow (place (seeds) in or on the ground for future growth)

Domain category:

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

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They sow the field with rye

Derivation:

sower (someone who sows)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs; the first, to sow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true seminal virtue to be contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments, which I was not skilful enough to comprehend.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In the 17th century, Isaac Newton, through his observations on the splitting of light by a prism, sowed the seeds for a new field of science studying the interactions between light and matter – spectroscopy.

(Nanowires replace Newton’s famous glass prism, University of Cambridge)

“She has sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps today!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Let the boys be boys, the longer the better, and let the young men sow their wild oats if they must.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it’s life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

These calculations show that the practices of sowing and harvesting water on Sierra Nevada date back about 1,300 years.

(Researchers demonstrate that Sierra Nevada is home to the oldest underground water recharge system in Europe, University of Granada)

For myself, I could no more run than if I had been sown in a sack; so here I sit, and here I am like to sit, before I set eyes upon my clothes again.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)