harrow
see also: Harrow
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈhæɹəʊ/
  • (America, non-Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /ˈhæɹoʊ/
  • (America, Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /ˈhɛɹoʊ/
Noun

harrow (plural harrows)

  1. A device consisting of a heavy framework having several disks or teeth in a row, which is dragged across ploughed land to smooth or break up the soil, to remove weeds or cover seeds; a harrow plow.
    • 1918, Louise & Aylmer Maude, trans. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Oxford 1998, p. 153:
      He sent for the carpenter, who was under contract to be with the threshing-machine, but it turned out that he was mending the harrows, which should have been mended the week before Lent.
    • 1969, Bessie Head, When Rain Clouds Gather, Heinemann 1995, p. 28:
      Part of your job would be to learn tractor ploughing and the use of planters, harrows, and cultivators.
  2. (military) An obstacle formed by turning an ordinary harrow upside down, the frame being buried.
Translations Verb

harrow (harrows, present participle harrowing; past and past participle harrowed)

  1. (transitive) To drag a harrow over; to break up with a harrow.
    • Bible, Job xxxix. 10
      Will he harrow the valleys after thee?
    • 1719 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
      When the corn was sown, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch it, as it may be called, rather than rake or harrow it.
  2. (transitive) To traumatize or disturb; to frighten or torment.
  3. (transitive) To break or tear, as if with a harrow; to wound; to lacerate; to torment or distress; to vex.
    • my aged muscles harrowed up with whips
      c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene v]:
      I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul.
Translations Translations
  • German: peinigen, quälen
  • Russian: трево́жить
  • Spanish: atormentar, asaetear
Interjection
  1. (obsolete) A call for help, or of distress, alarm etc.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vi:
      Harrow, the flames, which me consume (said hee) / Ne can be quencht, within my secret bowels bee.

Harrow
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /hæɹəʊ/
Proper noun
  1. A town in northwestern Greater London.
  2. London borough in Greater London, England.
  3. A prestigious public school for boys in the town of Harrow.
Proper noun
  1. Surname for a harrower.



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