sownadj.
/səʊn/, U.S. /soʊn/ 1.
a. Of seed, etc.: That has been sown, frequently as distinguished from that which has grown of itself.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > sowing > [adjective] > sown
sown1578
sowed1733
1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball 68 Garden or sowen Woad, brused, is good to be layde upon woundes.
1733 J. Tull Horse-hoing Husbandry xiv. 90 Poor Slate Land, when it has borne sown St. Foin for Six or Seven Years,..produces Three Crops of Corn.
a1797 E. Burke Thoughts on Scarcity (1800) 36 Neither of the sown or natural grass was there..any remainder.
1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. I. vii. i. 335 Fires, fevers, sown seeds, chemical mixtures.
1872 C. Innes Lect. Sc. Legal Antiq. vi. 242 You will observe that made a late hay harvest compare with our sown grass.
b. With limiting term preceding.See also new adv.
ΚΠ
?1768–9 Encycl. Brit. (1771) I. 62/2 The early sown pease have the best chance to produce a crop of corn, and the late sown to produce a crop of straw.
1801 Farmer's Mag. Apr. 232 Some of the late sown clover wheats have been attacked by the grub.
1801 Farmer's Mag. Aug. 354 The wheat and rye (Autumn sown crops) are good every where.
1890 Hardwicke's Sci.-gossip 26 167 Our native lark,..busy upon some newly sown grass seed.
2. Of land: Furnished with seed. Also absol., esp. as contrasted with desert.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > arrangement or fact of being arranged > state of being scattered or dispersed > [adjective] > covered with something scattered
umbespreadc1400
sown1647
oversown1648
studded1652
sanded1762
scattered1798
parsemé1814
the world > food and drink > farming > farm > farmland > land raising crops > [adjective] > sown or planted
plantedc1450
well-planted1567
seeded1582
sown1647
cropped1840
sod-planted1967
1647 H. Hexham Copious Eng. & Netherduytch Dict. Sowne fields, gezaeyde ackeren.
1670 J. Pettus Fodinæ Regales 87 His fenced Parks, Medows, and sowen Fields.
1801 Farmer's Mag. Jan. 94 The later sown fields are only putting forth a braird.
1801 Farmer's Mag. Apr. 228 Some of the sown lands were then but half harrowed.
1859 E. FitzGerald tr. Rubáiyát Omar Khayyám x. 3 With me along some Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown.
1926 T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars (subscribers' ed.) lix. 309 The difference between Hejaz and Syria was the difference between the desert and the sown.
1940 J. Buchan Memory Hold-the-Door i. 22 We had for our playground both the desert and the sown.
1957 K. M. Kenyon Digging up Jericho 29 The age-long struggle of the Desert and the Sown.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1913; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1578