sown


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sown

impregnated with seed; propagated; spread: You have sown the seeds of suspicion.
Not to be confused with:
sewn – made, repaired: I have sewn the pieces together.
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree Copyright © 2007, 2013 by Mary Embree

sown

 (sōn)
v.
A past participle of sow1.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sown

(səʊn)
vb
a past participle of sow1
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sow1

(soʊ)

v. sowed, sown sowed, sow•ing. v.t.
1. to scatter (seed) over land, earth, etc., for growth; plant.
2. to scatter seed over (land, earth, etc.) for the purpose of growth.
3. to implant, introduce, or promulgate; disseminate: to sow distrust or dissension.
4. to strew or sprinkle with anything.
v.i.
5. to sow seed, as for the production of a crop.
Idioms:
sow one's wild oats, to have a youthful fling at reckless, indiscreet behavior.
[before 900; Middle English; Old English sāwan, c. Old Saxon sāian, Old High German sā(w)en, Old Norse sā, Gothic saian; akin to seed, Latin sēmen seed, serere to sow]
sow′a•ble, adj.
sow′er, n.

sow2

(saʊ)

n.
1. an adult female swine.
2. the adult female of various other animals, as the bear.
3.
a. a large oblong mass of iron that has solidified in the common channel through which the molten metal flows to the smaller channels where the pigs solidify.
b. the common channel itself.
[before 900; Middle English sowe, Old English sugu, c. Old Saxon suga]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.sown - sprinkled with seed; "a seeded lawn"
planted - set in the soil for growth
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations
References in classic literature ?
Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow.
I was up home; an old man up there has sown wheat too, about an acre of it.
It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one grain of what I sowed this time came to anything: for the dry months following, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till the wet season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but newly sown.
These beds were the only sign of any attempt at gardening to be seen (except a solitary crocus that came up all by itself each spring in the grass, not because it wanted to, but because it could not help it), and these I had sown with ipomaea, the whole eleven, having found a German gardening book, according to which ipomaea in vast quantities was the one thing needful to turn the most hideous desert into a paradise.
Luckily I had sown two great patches of sweetpeas which made me very happy all the summer, and then there were some sunflowers and a few hollyhocks under the south windows, with Madonna lilies in between.
All eleven were to have been carpeted with purple pansies, but finding that I had not enough and that nobody had any to sell me, only six have got their pansies, the others being sown with dwarf mignonette.
The hollyhocks and lilies (now flourishing) are still under the south windows in a narrow border on the top of a grass slope, at the foot of which I have sown two long borders of sweetpeas facing the rose beds, so that my roses may have something almost as sweet as themselves to look at until the autumn, when everything is to make place for more tea-roses.
All through April he was putting the perennials we had sown in the autumn into their permanent places, and all through April he went about with a long piece of string making parallel lines down the borders of beautiful exactitude and arranging the poor plants like soldiers at a review.
He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did Nicholas.
In order to secure the grave against secret disturbance, it was sown with thistles.
The Thebans sprung from the Dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus.
The walls were sown with innumerable fleurs-de-lis.