fallow

Meanings

Noun

• Ground ploughed and harrowed but left unseeded for one year.
• Uncultivated land.
• The ploughing or tilling of land, without sowing it for a season.

Adjective

• Ploughed but left unseeded for more than one planting season.
• Left unworked and uncropped for some amount of time.
• Inactive; undeveloped.
• Of a pale red or yellow, light brown; dun.

Verb

• To make land fallow for agricultural purposes.

Origin

• From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealh, from Proto-West Germanic *falgu (compare Saterland Frisian falge, Dutch valg, German Felge), from Proto-Indo-European *polḱéh₂ (compare Gaulish olca, Russian полоса́).
• From Middle English falowen, falwen, from Old English fealgian, from Proto-West Germanic *falgōn. Cognate with Dutch valgen, German Low German falgen.
• From Middle English falwe, from Old English fealu, from Proto-Germanic *falwaz (compare West Frisian feal, Dutch vaal, German falb, fahl), from Proto-Indo-European *polwos (compare Lithuanian pal̃vas, Russian половый, Serbo-Croatian plav, Ancient Greek πολιός), from Proto-Indo-European *pelH-.