PLOUGH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Plough mean? 

• PLOUGH (noun)
  The noun PLOUGH has 2 senses:

1. a group of seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major

2. a farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing

  Familiarity information: PLOUGH used as a noun is rare.

• PLOUGH (verb)
  The verb PLOUGH has 2 senses:

1. move in a way resembling that of a plow cutting into or going through the soil

2. to break and turn over earth especially with a plow

  Familiarity information: PLOUGH used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLOUGH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A group of seven bright stars in the constellation Ursa Major

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

Big Dipper; Charles's Wain; Dipper; Plough; Wagon; Wain

Instance hypernyms:

asterism ((astronomy) a cluster of stars (or a small constellation))

Holonyms ("Plough" is a part of...):

Great Bear; Ursa Major (a constellation outside the zodiac that rotates around the North Star)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

plough; plow

Hypernyms ("plough" is a kind of...):

tool (an implement used in the practice of a vocation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "plough"):

bull tongue (a heavy plow with a single wide blade; used chiefly in cotton fields)

moldboard plow; mouldboard plough (plow that has a moldboard)

Derivation:

plough (to break and turn over earth especially with a plow)

• PLOUGH (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they plough    ... he / she / it ploughs   
Past simple: ploughed   
Past participle: ploughed   
-ing form: ploughing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move in a way resembling that of a plow cutting into or going through the soil

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

plough; plow

Context example:

The ship plowed through the water

Hypernyms (to "plough" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Sentence frames:

Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

To break and turn over earth especially with a plow

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

plough; plow; turn

Context example:

turn the earth in the Spring

Hypernyms (to "plough" is one way to...):

till (work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation)

"Plough" entails doing...:

cut into; delve; dig; turn over (turn up, loosen, or remove earth)

Domain category:

agriculture; farming; husbandry (the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "plough"):

ridge (plough alternate strips by throwing the furrow onto an unploughed strip)

disk; harrow (draw a harrow over (land))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

plough (a farm tool having one or more heavy blades to break the soil and cut a furrow prior to sowing)

ploughing (tilling the land with a plow)

 Context examples 

Most of the fields had been ploughed then abandoned between one and 91 years earlier.

(Plant biodiversity struggles to return in wake of agricultural abandonment, National Science Foundation)

You have already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The Ghost ploughed on her way.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Heavy steps ploughed their way through the soft gravel, and a broad figure loomed upon us in the darkness.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“What dangerous walking it is,” said he, “in this ploughed field! If I were to fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughed through by main strength.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The sled itself was without runners, being a birch-bark toboggan, with upturned forward end to keep it from ploughing under the snow.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

About the centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and I followed—I tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among the sliding gravel.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A few yards from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the branches and ferns which fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)