plow back

Idioms  

1. Reinvest earnings or profits in one's business, as in This company plows back half its profits every year. This term transfers the farming practice of turning the soil from top to bottom to financial enterprises. [First half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plow back

Both the nation's biggest business and biggest taxpayer, Pemex last year grossed $286 million, paid $35.6 million in federal taxes, still had $72 million to plow back into development.

From Time Magazine Archive

Discreetly Krupp will declare no dividend, but Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, preparing to plow back his profits into reserves, felt so flush last week that he handed out bonuses to all employes and executives.

From Time Magazine Archive

London's Waddington points out that the auction world's Big Two, unlike most thriving corporations, do not plow back even part of their profits into research, grants for young artists or gifts to museums.

From Time Magazine Archive

Every year I'd plow back one percent of the gross inta advertising .

From Time Magazine Archive

So the passage of the plow back and forth was a trial to both the muscles and the spirit.

From The Young Trailers A Story of Early Kentucky by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler