sow
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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sows,
present (3rd person singular)
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sowed,
past participle, past
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sown,
past participle
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sowing
present participle
-
to scatter (seed) over land, earth, etc., for growth; plant.
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to plant seed for.
to sow a crop.
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to scatter seed over (land, earth, etc.) for the purpose of growth.
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to implant, introduce, or promulgate; seek to propagate or extend; disseminate.
to sow distrust or dissension.
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to strew or sprinkle with anything.
verb (used without object)
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sows,
present (3rd person singular)
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sowed,
past participle, past
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sown,
past participle
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sowing
present participle
noun
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sows
plural
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an adult female swine.
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the adult female of various other animals, as the bear.
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Metallurgy.
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a large oblong mass of iron that has solidified in the common channel through which the molten metal flows to the smaller channels in which the pigs solidify.
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the common channel itself.
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a basin holding any of certain molten nonferrous metals to be cast.
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noun
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a female adult pig
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the female of certain other animals, such as the mink
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metallurgy
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the channels for leading molten metal to the moulds in casting pig iron
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iron that has solidified in these channels
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verb
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to scatter or place (seed, a crop, etc) in or on (a piece of ground, field, etc) so that it may grow
to sow wheat
to sow a strip of land
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(tr) to implant or introduce
to sow a doubt in someone's mind
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sowsimple
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sowssimple
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have sowedperfect
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have sownperfect
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has sowedperfect
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has sownperfect
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am sowingprogressive
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are sowingprogressive
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is sowingprogressive
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have been sowingperfect progressive
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has been sowingperfect progressive
Past
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sowedsimple
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had sowedperfect
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had sownperfect
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was sowingprogressive
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were sowingprogressive
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had been sowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sow1
First recorded before 900; Middle English sowen, Old English sāwan; cognate with Dutch zaaien, German säen, Old Norse sā, Gothic saian; akin to seed, Latin sēmen “seed”
Origin of sow2
First recorded before 900; Middle English soue, sou(we), Old English sugu, sū; cognate with German Sau, Old Norse sȳr, Latin sūs, Greek hûs, Tocharian B suwo; see swine
Explanation
When you plant seeds in the ground, you sow them. You can also sow things like doubts or ideas, simply by spreading them around. If your ideas (or your seeds) develop and grow, you've successfully sown them. The verb sow is pronounced completely differently from the noun sow, which means "a female pig." When you sow flower seeds, it rhymes with "go." When you admire an enormous, muddy sow in a pig pen, it rhymes with "cow." When two words are spelled the same but sound different, they're called heteronyms.
Vocabulary lists containing sow
"The Hill We Climb," by Amanda Gorman
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Dirty Words: The Language of Gardening
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Starting Your New Life: Inspiring Words from Commencement Speeches
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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:
Well, God knows you reap what you sow.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
“AI hype and exuberant financial markets” could sow the seeds of instability.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026
After a government irrigation canal next to his farm dried up recently just before this year’s rice-sowing season, he decided to sow corn instead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
It means Scottish pig farmers are losing up to £1,000 per sow place, according to NFU Scotland.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
I’d rather come back as a sow bug, myself; or a stir-fried shrimp.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Danny Skinner, who farms at Duncanstone near Insch, Aberdeenshire, has around 450 sows and sells about 270 "fat pigs" every week.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
Wall Street loves an ugly portmanteau, or jamming together of two words in a way that sows confusion, followed closely by dislike.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
As with all commodities, success sows the seeds of its own destruction—even if AI hopes are fulfilled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
He sows chaos even when he clearly doesn’t mean the things he says.
From Slate ● Mar. 6, 2026
For example, when a farmer sows seeds densely in a garden, there is intense competition among the seeds.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
But it sowed a seed and she joined a local running club in Manchester.
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2026
The latest strikes have sowed panic and more psychological stress among the prison population.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 23, 2026
The American Academy of Pediatrics called the order "historic and welcome," saying in a statement the changes had "sowed chaos and confusion for parents and pediatricians across the country."
From Barron's ● Mar. 16, 2026
“Mencho’s name and Mencho’s aura carried a lot of legend, it sowed fear,” Craine said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 23, 2026
The young rice beds which Wang Lung sowed at first were squares of jade upon the brown earth.
From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
Seeds of the idea for blocs within the bloc were sown decades ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
Nearly half of the country's net sown farmland has no assured irrigation and depends largely on rainfall, making the timing and spread of the monsoon critical for millions of farmers.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Sam Sacks finds that Ray Nayler’s novel is “skillfully sown with dramatic surprises” even as it straddles the divide “between the speculative and the plausible.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
But in about 1989, the seeds of a new Muffler Man era were sown.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
The great bowl of the Olympic Stadium, its floor forty-two feet below ground level, had been excavated and leveled, its central field sown with grass that was already lush and green.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
It’s a grim idea, that our hope is in a tool that discourages in-depth reading and a long-shot hypothetical strategy—both of which rely on technology known for sowing confusion.
From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026
The monsoon season continues until September, leaving time for rainfall to recover and farmers to make up some of the delayed sowing.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Meanwhile, frightful aftershocks continued to rock the area, sowing terror in a population already reaching the limits of endurance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
The people of New York vanquished him with none of the spite he has spent decades sowing, but with grace, love, and pride in their city.
From Salon ● Jun. 17, 2026
He pretended, therefore, that he had gone mad, and when a messenger from the Greek Army arrived, the King was plowing a field and sowing it with salt instead of seed.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
