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''fallow'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708194133-00-⌔

fallow - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

fallow (countable and uncountable, plural fallows)

  • (agriculture, uncountable) Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.
    • ✤ Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
      Whilst the landskip round it measures,
      Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
      Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
      Mountains on whose barren breast
      The labouring clouds do often rest;
      Meadows trim with daisies pied,
      Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.      1
  • (agriculture, uncountable) Uncultivated land.
  • The ploughing or tilling of land, without sowing it for a season.
    • ✤ By a complete summer fallow, land is rendered tender and mellow. The fallow gives it a better tilth than can be given by a fallow crop.2

Adjective

fallow (comparative more fallow, superlative most fallow)

  • (of agricultural land) Ploughed but left unseeded for more than one planting season.
  • (of agricultural land) Left unworked and uncropped for some amount of time.
  • (figurative) Inactive; undeveloped.
    • ✤ a fallow period in one’s career
    • ✤ After two more homeland hits and a fallow two years, Pickettywitch was parked and junked.3

Verb

fallow (third-person singular simple present fallows, present participle fallowing, simple past and past participle fallowed)

  • (transitive) To make land fallow for agricultural purposes.

Adjective

fallow (comparative more fallow, superlative most fallow)

  • Of a pale red or yellow, light brown; dun.
    • ✤ a fallow deer or greyhound
    • ✤ fallow:
    • ✤ How does your fallow greyhound, sir?4

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈfæləʊ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (US) enPR: fălʹō, IPA: /ˈfæloʊ/
  • Rhymes: -æləʊ

Etymology 1

🖼️ ➺

From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealh, fealg (“fallow land”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡falgu (compare Saterland Frisian Falge, West Frisian falig, felling, Dutch valg, German Felge), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡polḱéh₂ (“arable land”) (compare Gaulish olca, Russian полоса́ (polosá)).

Etymology 2

From Middle English falowen, falwen, from Old English fealgian (“to fallow; break up land”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡falgōn (“to fallow”). Cognate with Dutch valgen (“to plow lightly; fallow”), German Low German falgen (“to till; dig a hole”).

Etymology 3

🖼️ ➺

From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealu, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡falu, from Proto-Germanic ﹡falwaz (compare West Frisian feal, Dutch vaal, German falb, fahl, French fauve), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡polwos (compare Lithuanian pal̃vas (“sallow, wan”), Russian поло́вый (polóvyj, “wan, light yellow”), Serbo-Croatian plâv (“blond, blue”), Ancient Greek πολιός (poliós, “grey”)), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡pelH- (“pale, gray”).

Printed 2026-07-08.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1645, John Milton, L’Allegro ‎: ↩

  2. 1832, Sir John Sinclair, The Code of Agriculture: ↩

  3. 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 316: ↩

  4. a. 1597, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 1, scene 1: ↩

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