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Glite Dictionary
🌾 Unplanted land 🌾 Unused field 💡 Unused potential 🌾 To leave unplanted
to fallow

to fallow

5.1
To leave land unplanted for a time so the soil recovers
  • verb
  • /ˈfæloʊ/
translation icon : dejar en barbecho
  • The traditional farming system included fallowing every other year and tilling with a moldboard plow.
  • fallow a field
  • farmers fallow land
  • fallow land

Examples

  • Like farmers in the Northern Great Plains, those in the Central Great Plains have traditionally grown wheat one season and left the ground fallow the next.

    Academic text (2005)

  • To improve soil quality, the farmer decided to fallow a portion of his fields for a season.

  • After realizing the soil was exhausted, they chose to fallow some land to restore its fertility.

  • To prepare for the next planting season, the agricultural team planned to fallow several acres of land.

Synonyms

to leave the field fallow
vsto fallow
  • Specialized
7.7

To stop growing crops on a field for a time to let the soil get better

has identical meaning but is the single word form rather than the phrase

Antonyms

to plant
361 1.0

To put seeds or young plants into the soil so they grow

to cultivate
38 4.0

To prepare land for growing crops

Phrasal Verbs

to leave the field fallow
  • Specialized
7.7

To stop growing crops on a field for a time to let the soil get better

to keep ideas fallow
8.6

To leave ideas unused for a while so they can grow and be used later

Compounds

fallow deer
1 7.8

A medium-sized deer with wide flat antlers and a light brown coat with white spots in summer

How Cultivated

to fallow
5.1
uncultivated
1 5.1
untilled
1 6.6
wild
142 2.8

Surface Forms

fallow infinitive
fallowed past
fallowed past participle
fallowing present participle
fallows third person singular

Etymology

The verb fallow means to leave land unplanted for a while to restore its quality, and this comes from the older idea of 'fallow' land as a pale-brown field resting to regain its strength.