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)
-
fallows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
fallowed,
past participle, past
-
fallowing
present participle
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
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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:
Poisoned by the overwhelmingly toxic culture of time, the film’s downward-punching humor is as radioactive as its future’s fallow fields.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
The event was rested for a fallow year this summer but will return in June 2027, with tickets expected to go on sale in November.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
The Landover data center site was proposed by Lerner Enterprises, a D.C.-based real estate firm that’s operated by the family that owns the Washington Nationals and has rights to that fallow lot.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
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
She could see why bunnies and bobwhites loved fallow fields.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
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
I hae seen a' te praw fallows, wha are as keen for te onset as te eagles o' Shehallion.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 15 by Various
The weedy fallows winter-worn, Where cattle shiver under sodden hay.
From Song-Surf by Cale Young Rice
Because the trees require watering in wet years or dry, their acreage can’t be fallowed during dry spells.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 16, 2024
That creates systematic differences between fallowed and cultivated fields, which could skew Boser's analysis.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
That was possible because some habitat was nestled within fields or along the margins and farmers often fallowed some fields.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 25, 2023
Some surplus water will be poured across fallowed farm fields so it can soak into the ground and recharge sinking aquifers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2023
I forgot to say that the land had been fallowed in with three horses in the month of August, and the wheat sowed in October.
From Guano A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers by Solon Robinson
Options include “more efficient irrigation, less water-intensive crops and short-term fallowing of fields,” according to Michael Cohen, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
To be fair, the results from fallowing would affect only 5% of cultivated land, as opposed to 50% for crop changes and improved farming practices.
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
That plan calls for reducing use through a combination of efforts that range from paying farmers not to pump groundwater to leasing surface water, fallowing farmland and making infrastructure improvements.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
In the same summer I was fallowing and preparing at considerable expense a field for wheat.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 by Various
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