• IPA: /plaʊ/

plough (plural ploughs)

1. A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.

   The horse-drawn plough had a tremendous impact on agriculture.

2. The use of a plough; tillage.
   • 1919, Commonwealth Shipping Committee, Report (volume 8, page 47)

     If you get it early ploughed and it lies all winter possibly, you find it an advantage to give it a second plough; but it does not invariably follow that we plough twice for our green crop.

3. Alternative form of Plough#English|Plough (Synonym of Ursa Major#English|Ursa Major)
4. Alternative form of ploughland, an alternative name for a carucate or hide.

   • Johan, mine eldest son, shall have plowes five.

5. A joiner's plane for making grooves.
6. A bookbinder's implement for trimming or shaving off the edges of books.

• (device) sull, zowl (English dialects)
• (unit of area) See carucate

• French: charrue, araire (swing-plough)
• German: Pflug
• Italian: aratro, aratrice
• Portuguese: arado
• Russian: плуг
• Spanish: arado

• Spanish: Carro Mayor

plough (ploughs, present participle ploughing; past and past participle ploughed)

1. (transitive) To use a plough on to prepare for planting.

   I've still got to plough that field.

2. (intransitive) To use a plough.

   Some days I have to plough from sunrise to sunset.

3. (transitive, vulgar) To have sex with, penetrate.
4. To move with force.

   Trucks plowed through the water to ferry flood victims to safety.

5. To furrow; to make furrows, grooves, or ridges in.
   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, 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 IV, scene xii]:

     Let patient Octavia plough thy visage up / With her prepared nails.

6. (nautical) To run through, as in sailing.
   • 1725, Homer; [William Broome], transl., “Book II”, in The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: Printed for Bernard Lintot, OCLC 8736646 ↗:

     With speed we plough the watery way.

7. (bookbinding) To trim, or shave off the edges of, as a book or paper, with a plough.
8. (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.
9. (UK, university slang, transitive) To fail (a student).

• (make furrows) chamfer, groove, rut
• (have sex with) get up in, pound, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
• (fail a student) flunk

• French: labourer
• German: pflügen
• Italian: arare
• Portuguese: arar, lavrar
• Russian: паха́ть
• Spanish: arar, labrar, barbechar

• French: labourer
• German: pflügen
• Italian: arare
• Portuguese: arar, lavrar
• Russian: паха́ть
• Spanish: arar

• French: labourer, pilonner
• German: ficken

• Italian: solcare

1. (constellation, British, common name) The brightest seven stars of the constellation Ursa Major.

   Synonyms: Big Dipper, Charles' Wain, Drinking Gourd, Northern Ladle, Northern Waggoner, Wain, triones, septentriones

1. Surname