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

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

After reorganizing the company from top to bottom, Ford and Breech began to plow back profits and cash on hand into modernization and expansion.

From Time Magazine Archive

Its only difficulty is that it has to plow back profits for expansion.

From Time Magazine Archive

Feeling both self-righteous and ashamed, he decides to plow back into the past, trying to find the man who both made and ruined large swatches of his son's life.

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 Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)