sow
verb (used with object)
to scatter (seed) over land, earth, etc., for growth; plant.
had been sowing
-
past perfect progressiveof sow.past perfect progressive
Used to describe an action that was ongoing continuously in the past up until another past event interrupted it.
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.
An improved British magnetic mine was announced, with news that big Bristol Beauforts and Handley Page Hampdens had been sowing them industriously for weeks in German harbors as far east as the Baltic.
From Time Magazine Archive
The novelty of the new enterprise died away as speedily, for the season at least, as if we had been sowing turnips.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 by Various
In their long period of silence they had been sowing the seeds of future conquests; in their short period of action they were gathering the fruit of past labours and sufferings.
From Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity by John Henry Newman
For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had been sowing the wind.
From The United States Since the Civil War by Charles Ramsdell Lingley
Louis XV. died of smallpox in 1774, leaving his grandsons to reap the harvest that generations had been sowing.
From History of France by J.R. Green
