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Origin and history of sown

sown

1570s of seed, 1640s of land, past-participle adjective from sow (v.).

also from 1570s

Entries linking to sown

sow(v.)

Middle English souen, from Old English sawan "to scatter seed upon the ground or plant it in the earth, disseminate" (class VII strong verb; past tense seow, past participle sawen), from Proto-Germanic *sean (source also of Old Norse sa, Old Saxon saian, Middle Dutch sayen, Dutch zaaien, Old High German sawen, German säen, Gothic saian).

This is reconstructed to be from PIE root *sē- "to sow," source of semen, season (n.), seed (n.). The figurative sense of "spread abroad, disseminate" was in Old English; of physical things other than seed, "scatter over, besprinkle," mid-14c. Related: Sowed, sown; sowing. Sowing machine "device for sowing seed" is by 1812.

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    sativa
    scientific plant name classifications from late 18c., indicating a cultivated form, is from Latin sativus "cultivated, that is sown...Sative (adj.) formerly was used in English for "sown, as in a garden (1590s). E.g....
    drudge
    The surname is from 13c., probably unrelated, from Old French dragie "a mixture of grains sown together," thus, a grower...
    seed
    Middle English sēd, from Old English sēd (Anglian), sæd (West Saxon), "that which may be sown; an individual grain of seed...
    scarecrow
    began using it as a political insult in 1819 and others picked it up; OED defines it as "one who scares away birds from a sown...
    insoluble
    [Gertrude Bell, "The Desert and the Sown," 1907] Meaning "incapable of being dissolved in a liquid" is from 1713....
    rare
    distributed, seldom found, very infrequent;" from Old French rer, rere "sparse" (14c.) and directly from Latin rarus "thinly sown...
    circulate
    1540s as a chemical term in reference to alternating vaporization and condensation, from Latin circulatus, past participle of circulare "to form a circle," from circulus "small ring" (see circle (n.)). Intransitive sense of "to pass about freely, pass from place to place or perso
    disseminate
    c. 1600, "to scatter or sow for propagation," from Latin disseminatus, past participle of disseminare "to spread abroad, disseminate," from dis- "in every direction" (see dis-) + seminare "to plant, propagate," from semen (genitive seminis) "seed" (from PIE root *sē- "to sow"). F
    inseminate
    1620s, "to cast as seed," from inseminatus, past participle of Latin inseminare "to sow, implant," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + semen (genitive semenis) "seed" (from PIE root *sē- "to sow"). Meaning "to impregnate with semen" is attested from 1897. It has seemed nece
    peso
    "Spanish coin, the Spanish dollar," also a coin in various Spanish-American nations,  1550s, from Spanish peso, literally "a weight," from Medieval Latin pensum, properly past participle of Latin pendere "to hang, cause to hang; weigh; pay" (from PIE root *(s)pen- "to draw,

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