• IPA: /saʊ/

sow (plural sows)

1. A female pig.
2. A female bear, she-bear.
3. A channel that conducts molten metal to molds.
4. A mass of metal solidified in a mold.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 160:

     In England, it was generally termed a 'sow', if the weight was above 10 cwts., if below, it was termed a 'pig' from which the present term 'pig iron' is derived.

5. (derogatory, slang) A contemptible, often fat woman.
6. A sowbug.
7. (military) A kind of covered shed, formerly used by besiegers in filling up and passing the ditch of a besieged place, sapping and mining the wall, etc.

• (mass of metal solidified in a mold) ingot
• (contemptible woman) bitch, cow

• French: truie
• German: Sau, Mutterschwein
• Italian: scrofa, troia
• Portuguese: porca
• Russian: свинья́
• Spanish: cerda, puerca

• Italian: lingotto, pane, panetto
• Russian: чушка

• Russian: скоти́на

• (British) IPA: /səʊ/
• (America) IPA: /soʊ/

sow (sows, present participle sowing; past sowed, past participle sown)

1. (ambitransitive) To scatter, disperse, or plant (seeds).

   When I had sown the field, the day's work was over.

   As you sow, so shall you reap.

2. (figurative) To spread abroad; to propagate.
   • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, published 1712, [Act 1, scene 6]:

     And sow dissension in the hearts of brothers.

3. (figurative) To scatter over; to besprinkle.

   • The intellectual faculty is a goodly field, […] and it is the worst husbandry in the world to sow it with trifles.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 7”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     [He] sowd with Starrs the heav'n.

• plant, scatter

• French: semer
• German: säen
• Italian: seminare
• Portuguese: semear
• Russian: се́ять
• Spanish: sembrar

1. Surname