fallow
1 Americanadjective
-
(of land) plowed and left unseeded for a season or more; uncultivated.
-
not in use; inactive.
My creative energies have lain fallow this year.
noun
verb (used with object)
adjective
adjective
-
(of land) left unseeded after being ploughed and harrowed to regain fertility for a crop
-
(of an idea, state of mind, etc) undeveloped or inactive, but potentially useful
noun
verb
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
fallowsimple
-
fallowssimple
-
have fallowedperfect
-
has fallowedperfect
-
am fallowingprogressive
-
are fallowingprogressive
-
is fallowingprogressive
-
have been fallowingperfect progressive
-
has been fallowingperfect progressive
Past
-
fallowedsimple
-
had fallowedperfect
-
was fallowingprogressive
-
were fallowingprogressive
-
had been fallowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fallow1
1275–1325; Middle English falwe; compare Old English fealga, plural of *fealh, as gloss of Medieval Latin occas harrows
Origin of fallow2
before 1000; Middle English fal ( o ) we, Old English fealu; cognate with German falb
Explanation
Something that is fallow is left unused. If you’re smart but lazy, someone might say you have a fallow mind. We use the word to talk about any unused resource, it started as a work about land. Fallow comes from the old English word for plowing, and refers to the practice of leaving fields unplowed in rotation — when a field lies fallow, the soil regains nutrients that are sucked up by over-planting.
Vocabulary lists containing fallow
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Down on the Farm
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As a result, fallow fields are in a "deplorable state, and at the slightest spark, the blaze spreads like wildfire" due to vegetation dried out by the heat.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
In May, the powerful Imperial Irrigation District nixed Rucci’s plan to buy farmland, leave it fallow and use the allotted water from the Colorado River to cool the data center.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
With a huge surplus of commercial space sitting fallow in the area, the flexibility and creativity of club music might be a natural fit to repopulate the area with foot traffic and revelers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
McIlroy eventually got over the line at the Masters last year, finally completing the full house and ending a painful 11-year fallow period.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026
Harriet decided that from the dilapidated look of the plantation—fields lying fallow, the Big House in need of repair—Doc Thompson would soon be selling slaves again.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Swidden-fallow systems, he argues, maintain a mosaic of fields, fallows, and forests, that is heterogeneous and therefore resilient to climate change.
From National Geographic ● Mar. 8, 2016
Today Mr. Skov fallows a fifth of his fields, and canal water that once flowed from March to October arrives in June and vanishes as early as August.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2015
Around 25% are using improved fallows with nitrogen-fixing trees, a scientific farming approach developed and introduced into Sauri by the World Agroforestry Center.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the south spread the green fields and red fallows of Clearwater, bathed in the sheen of the lingering sun.
From John March, Southerner by Cable, George W.
Turnips are now substituted in the place of these naked fallows; and now land in turnips is considered as fallow.
From The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1 by Webster, Daniel
Estimates suggest up to 900,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley alone might need to be fallowed to reduce the drawdown of groundwater and balance supply and demand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2024
Crops that could be fallowed during dry spells, leaving more water for the environment, were supplanted by almond and pistachio orchards, which require water in wet years and dry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
That creates systematic differences between fallowed and cultivated fields, which could skew Boser's analysis.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
Wells ran dry, farmers fallowed fields, and cities restricted watering grass.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
The fallowed earth gave forth a fresh, pleasant smell.
From Shadows of Flames A Novel by Rives, Amélie
“Water shortages, mandatory restrictions, land fallowing and job loss all impact our state and local economies.”
From Seattle Times ● May 16, 2024
It is seen as a better option than year-round fallowing, which the agency employed between 2003 and 2017.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2024
"We're probably going to have to fall back on fallowing at least a little bit," Boser said, "but hopefully not as much as we were originally expecting."
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
These groups became convinced that this relic technology could curb hunger in the Andes by enabling back-to-back potato harvests with no need for fallowing.
From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2024
What I had heard and read of fallowing now came back to mind.
From Land of the Burnt Thigh by Voorhies, Stephen J.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
