- past participle of sow.
sown
Americanverb
verb
Other Word Forms
Explanation
When a farmer's fields are sown, it means that she's planted seeds in them. If you sow something, you scatter seeds on it or plant tiny seedlings in it. The adjective sown is the past participle of sow, so you could say, "The field behind the school was sown with wildflower seeds," or "There were so many seeds that couldn't be sown this year because of the drought." The word comes from the Old English sāwan, "to scatter seed upon the ground."
Vocabulary lists containing sown
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.
Seeds of the idea for blocs within the bloc were sown decades ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
Pigeons "have an extremely sophisticated olfactory system, so that they can smell grass seed when it's being sown," said Davis.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 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
The seed of Stellantis’s bet on Wayve was sown on a test ride in London, when the technology wowed the carmaker’s chief technology officer, Ned Curic, with its humanlike way of edging into flowing traffic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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.
