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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fallow.

Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈfæləʊ/UK/ˈfæloʊ/US
  1. Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.

    uncountable
  2. Uncultivated land.

    uncountable
  3. The ploughing or tilling of land, without sowing it for a season.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

[Alt: A photograph of a ploughed field.] 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)).

adj/ˈfæləʊ/UK/ˈfæloʊ/US
  1. Ploughed but left unseeded for more than one planting season.

  2. Left unworked and uncropped for some amount of time.

  3. Inactive; undeveloped.

    figuratively
    a fallow period in one's career
Where this word comes from

[Alt: A photograph of a ploughed field.] 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)).

verb/ˈfæləʊ/UK/ˈfæloʊ/US
  1. To make land fallow for agricultural purposes.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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”).

adj/ˈfæləʊ/UK/ˈfæloʊ/US
  1. Of a pale red or yellow, light brown; dun.

    a fallow deer or greyhound
Where this word comes from

[Alt: A photograph of a light brown deer.] 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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.