plow under

Idioms  

1. Cause to vanish, overwhelm, as in The independent bookstores are being plowed under by the large chains. This term alludes to the farmer's burying vegetation by turning it into the soil with a plow. [Second half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

With the onset of the coronavirus, many farmers were forced to plow under crops or dump their milk, even as grocery store shelves emptied out and many American families went hungry.

From New York Times • Mar. 25, 2021

Large scale corporate operations will deny access to hunters and for certain plow under the grassed waterways and seasonally inundated wetland in favor of maximizing production.

From New York Times • Jun. 12, 2016

It is cooking with imperfect vegetables that farmers might otherwise plow under.

From New York Times • Jul. 7, 2015

His hasty campaign to plow under fallow grasslands has impaired huge areas of once-fertile soil since 1958.

From Time Magazine Archive

Green crops, to plow under, are in many places largely raised, and are always beneficial.

From The Elements of Agriculture A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools by Waring, George E. (George Edwin)

Related Words

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• clobber
• drub
• edge
• knock out
• outplay
• overpower
• take
• thrash
• trounce
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