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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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:
Farmers can be paid to leave fields fallow because keeping water in the river is more valuable than using it to grow a crop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
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
"Richmond Park's red and fallow deer are wild, powerful animals. Although they may appear calm, they can react suddenly and aggressively if they feel threatened," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 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
It is probable, moreover, that the pollen content of the atmosphere is not related to roadside ragweed, but to the ragweed of city lots and fallow fields.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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
The fallows are not, however, left to waste their substance entirely on weeds and wild-flowers, for they form the best spring-grazing grounds for cattle, and thus, too, receive a certain allowance of manure.
From Wild Spain (Espa?a agreste) Records of Sport with Rifle, Rod, and Gun, Natural History Exploration by Walter J. Buck
This is poetry that goes without help of rhyme; even its halts are big with invitations to the "upland fallows gray," and to the "pensive pleasures sweet."
From English Lands Letters and Kings Queen Anne and the Georges by Donald G. Mitchell
The Department of Water Resources said the program has also helped in redirecting floodwaters onto fallowed farmland to recharge groundwater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025
Estimates suggest up to 900,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley alone might need to be fallowed to reduce the drawdown of groundwater and balance supply and demand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2024
So, she compared transpiration in fallowed fields to active fields across the Central Valley.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
“This has led to the fields being left fallow,” she said, adding that on fallowed lands farmers don’t bother fortifying tidal embankments, which leads to yet more salt.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 25, 2023
All the requisite conditions for germination are best met by the conditions prevailing in a well-kept summer fallowed soil.
From Dry-Farming : a System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall by John Andreas Widtsoe
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
Brett Miller said the current program is “a strong solution in conserving a lot of water, and doing so without crippling our local farming industry, as full-year fallowing has done elsewhere.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2024
The results, published in Nature Communications, suggest that variation in efficiency due to farming practices could save as much water as switching crops or fallowing fields.
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
Huey Dunn's plan of mellowing, or rotting the soil, was not yet the true fallowing method.
From Land of the Burnt Thigh by Stephen J. Voorhies
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