plod

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Pronunciation

• (British) IPA: /plɒd/

Noun

plod (uncountable)

1. A slow or labored walk or other motion or activity.

   We started at a brisk walk and ended at a plod.

Verb

plod (plods, present participle plodding; past and past participle plodded)

1. (intransitive) To walk or move slowly and heavily or laboriously (+ on, through, over).
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 50,

     The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,

     Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,

   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island Part One, Chapter 1
     • I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea chest following behind him in a handbarrow;
2. (transitive) To trudge over or through.
   • 1596, Henoch Clapham, A Briefe of the Bible, Edinburgh: Robert Walde-grave, p. 127,

     Quest[ion]. Where was Ioseph?

     Answ[er]. It may be, he was playing the Carpenter abrode for all their three livings, but sure it is, he was not idlely plodding the streetes, much lesse tipling in the Taverne with our idle swingers.

   • 1799, Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Love of Gain, London: J. Bell, p. 50, lines 449-451,

     […] Speed thou to Lombard-street,

     Or plod the gambling 'Change with busy feet,

     'Midst Bulls and Bears some false report to spread,

   • 1896, Alfred Edward Housman, A Shropshire Lad, London: The Richards Press, XLVI, pp. 69-70,

     Break no rosemary, bright with rime

     And sparkling to the cruel clime;

     Nor plod the winter land to look

     For willows in the icy brook

     To cast them leafless round him […]

3. To toil; to drudge; especially, to study laboriously and patiently.
   • 1597, Michael Drayton, “Edward the fourth to Shores wife” in Englands Heroicall Epistles, London: N. Ling,

     Poore plodding schoolemen, they are farre too low,

     which by probations, rules and axiom’s goe,

     He must be still familiar with the skyes,

     which notes the reuolutions of thine eyes;

Translations

• French: marcher lourdement
• German: stapfen
• Italian: camminare a fatica
• Russian: тащи́ться
• Spanish: caminar pesadamente

Noun

plod (plural plods)

1. (obsolete) A puddle.

Noun

plod (uncountable)

1. (UK, mildly, derogatory, uncountable, usually with "the") the police, police officers
2. (UK, mildly, derogatory, countable) a police officer, especially a low-ranking one.

Synonyms

• (the police) seeSynonyms en
• (police officer) seeSynonyms en

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