Crossword clues for plough
plough
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Plough \Plough\, n. & v. See Plow.
Plow \Plow\, Plough \Plough\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Plowed (ploud) or Ploughed; p. pr. & vb. n. Plowing or Ploughing.]
To turn up, break up, or trench, with a plow; to till with, or as with, a plow; as, to plow the ground; to plow a field.
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To furrow; to make furrows, grooves, or ridges in; to run through, as in sailing.
Let patient Octavia plow thy visage up With her prepared nails.
--Shak.With speed we plow the watery way.
--Pope. (Bookbinding) To trim, or shave off the edges of, as a book or paper, with a plow. See Plow, n., 5.
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(Joinery) 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 plow in, to cover by plowing; as, to plow in wheat.
To plow up, to turn out of the ground by plowing.
Plow \Plow\, Plough \Plough\ (plou), n. [OE. plouh, plou, AS. pl[=o]h; akin to D. ploeg, G. pflug, OHG. pfluog, pfluoh, Icel. pl[=o]gr, Sw. plog, Dan. ploug, plov, Russ. plug', Lith. plugas.]
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A well-known implement, drawn by horses, mules, oxen, or other power, for turning up the soil to prepare it for bearing crops; also used to furrow or break up the soil for other purposes; as, the subsoil plow; the draining plow.
Where fern succeeds ungrateful to the plow.
--Dryden. Fig.: Agriculture; husbandry.
--Johnson.-
A carucate of land; a plowland. [Obs.] [Eng.]
Johan, mine eldest son, shall have plowes five.
--Tale of Gamelyn. A joiner's plane for making grooves; a grooving plane.
(Bookbinding) An implement for trimming or shaving off the edges of books.
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(Astron.) Same as Charles's Wain. Ice plow, a plow used for cutting ice on rivers, ponds, etc., into cakes suitable for storing. [U. S.] Mackerel plow. See under Mackerel. Plow alms, a penny formerly paid by every plowland to the church. --Cowell. Plow beam, that part of the frame of a plow to which the draught is applied. See Beam, n., 9. Plow Monday, the Monday after Twelth Day, or the end of Christmas holidays. Plow staff.
A kind of long-handled spade or paddle for cleaning the plowshare; a paddle staff.
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A plow handle.
Snow plow, a structure, usually [Lambda]-shaped, for removing snow from sidewalks, railroads, etc., -- drawn or driven by a horse or a locomotive.
Plow \Plow\, Plough \Plough\ (plou), v. i.
To labor with, or as with, a plow; to till or turn up the
soil with a plow; to prepare the soil or bed for anything.
--Shak.
Doth the plowman plow all day to sow ?
--Isa. xxviii.
24.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
alternative spelling of plow. Related: Ploughed; ploughing.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting. 2 (altname: Ursa Major) 3 (altform ploughland nodot=1 English), an ''alternative name for a'' '''carucate''' or '''hide'''. 4 A joiner's plane for making grooves. 5 A bookbinder's implement for trimming or shave off the edges of books. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To use a plough on to prepare for planting. 2 (context intransitive English) To use a plough. 3 (context transitive vulgar English) To have sex with. 4 To move with force.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Plough (also spelt plow), may refer to:
- Plough, a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil
- Plough (unit), a unit of medieval measurement
- Plough, a name for the asterism Big Dipper, in the constellation of Ursa Major
- Plough, a form of backstaff, a device for steering a ship
- Plough, a pair of Contact shoe on a vehicle such as a tram, that draw power from a pair of rails (One positive, one negative to complete the circuit) underneath the road
- The Plough (magazine), a United Kingdom magazine
- Plough pose, a name for the Halasana pose in Yoga
- Plough, a bookbinding tool used to trim the edges of a book
- Plough, a slang term meaning to engage in sexual intercourse with
- Plough Publishing House ( Bruderhof Communities)
A plough ( UK) or plow ( US; both ) is a tool or farm implement used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting to loosen or turn the soil. Ploughs are traditionally drawn by working animals such as horses or cattle, but in modern times may be drawn by tractors. A plough may be made of wood, iron, or steel frame with an attached blade or stick used to cut the earth. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, although written references to the plough do not appear in English until c. 1100 at which point it is referenced frequently. The plough represents one of the major advances in agriculture.
The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops and allowing them to break down. As the plough is drawn through the soil it creates long trenches of fertile soil called furrows. In modern use, a ploughed field is typically left to dry out, and is then harrowed before planting. Plowing and cultivating a soil homogenizes and modifies the upper 12 to 25 cm of the soil to form a plow layer. In many soils, the majority of fine plant feeder roots can be found in the topsoil or plow layer.
Ploughs were initially human powered, but the process became considerably more efficient once animals were pressed into service. The first animal powered ploughs were undoubtedly pulled by oxen, and later in many areas by horses (generally draft horses) and mules, although various other animals have been used for this purpose. In industrialised countries, the first mechanical means of pulling a plough were steam-powered ( ploughing engines or steam tractors), but these were gradually superseded by internal-combustion-powered tractors.
Modern competitions take place for ploughing enthusiasts like the National Ploughing Championships in Ireland. Use of the plough has decreased in some areas, often those significantly threatened by soil damage and erosion, in favour of shallower ploughing and other less invasive conservation tillage techniques.
Natural farming methods are emerging that do not involve any ploughing at all, unless an initial ploughing is necessary to break up hardpan on a new plot to be cultivated, so that the newly introduced soil life can penetrate and develop more quickly and deeply. By not ploughing, beneficial fungi and microbial life can develop that will eventually bring air into the soil, retain water and build up nutrients. A healthy soil full of active fungi and microbial life, combined with a diverse crop (making use of companion planting), suppresses weeds and pests naturally and retains rainwater. Thus the intensive use of water-, oil- and energy hungry irrigation, fertilizers and herbicides are avoided. Cultivated land becomes more fertile and productive over time, while tilled land tends to go down in productivity over time due to erosion and the removal of nutrients with every harvest. Proponents of permaculture claim that it is the only way of farming that can be maintained when fossil fuel runs out. On the other hand, the advantage of agricultural methods that require repeated ploughing are that they allow monocropping on a large scale at remote locations, using industrial machinery rather than human labor.
Usage examples of "plough".
He had instead been cultivating his acquaintanceship with Mercer, a game plan that would have come to an abrupt end if the Lorrimores had deserted the trip, which they would have done at once if the Canadian had ploughed into their home-from-home.
One afternoon there rose up a flock of rooks out of a large oak tree standing separate in the midst of an arable field which was then at last being ploughed.
In the natural course of planetary exploration more data come in, and we find an army of old ideas ploughed down by an armamentarium of new facts.
So they filled their fantasy world with fabulous machines -- machines that ploughed the sod, cut and baled the grain, even milked the cattle.
Wild charlock--a clear yellow--pink pimpernels, pink-streaked convolvulus, great white convolvulus, double-yellow toadflax, blue borage, broad rays of blue chicory, tall corn-cockles, azure corn-flowers, the great mallow, almost a bush, purple knapweed--I will make no further catalogue, but there are pages more of flowers, great and small, that grow at the edge of the plough, from the coltsfoot that starts out of the clumsy clod in spring to the white clematis.
Where Amber joy 173 had ploughed on, getting ever further from the bird, Dandy Lass stopped and, treading water, looked back to where Centaine stood on the far bank.
As I write these words, in the very moment, I feel that the whole air, the sunshine out yonder lighting up the ploughed earth, the distant sky, the circumambient ether, and that far space, is full of soul-secrets, soul-life, things outside the experience of all the ages.
Harknesses were shot at the plough, through their lamp-lit cabin windows, coming from camp-meeting, asleep, in duello, sober and otherwise, singly and in family groups, prepared and unprepared.
The ploughing, now in full swing, enveloped him in a vague, slowmoving whirl of things.
It ploughed its way across Ontario, and the skeleton of our Favosites was rooted out from the quiet place where it had lain so long, and was caught up in a crevice of the ice.
He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the waterline.
Or if I was a say-dove, to fly unto the shoor, To fly unto my true love, a waiting at the door, To wed her with a goold ring, and plough the main no moor.
Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the snow lay on his ragged great-coat, and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering him like gyves, whistled in the very beard of the gale.
Sweeting was not quite on a level with the coal dealer, who was a merchant, nor with the ironmonger, who repaired ploughs, and he was certainly below Mr.
Furze was the largest ironmonger in Eastthorpe, and sold not only ironmongery, but ploughs and all kinds of agricultural implements.