# harrow

Pronunciation: say "HA-roh" US /ˈhæɹoʊ/, UK /ˈhæɹəʊ/

## Verb

1. To distress, torment, or deeply disturb someone.
   - Simple: To make someone very upset, scared, or troubled.
   - _Accounts of the famine harrow even readers who think they have seen everything._
   - _The testimony harrowed the jurors, several of whom left the courtroom in tears._
3. To drag a harrow over land, or to break up soil with a harrow.
   - Simple: To pull a harrow over a field to break up the soil.
   - _Farmers harrow the seedbed lightly so the seed is covered without being buried too deep._
   - _Last spring she harrowed the whole east field with an old tractor._

## Noun

2. A farm implement with a heavy frame carrying a row of disks or teeth, dragged over plowed land to break up or smooth the soil, remove weeds, or cover seeds.
   - Simple: A heavy farm tool with teeth or disks, pulled over a plowed field to break up the soil.
   - _After plowing, they ran a disk harrow over the field to break up the clods._
   - _The auction included two tractors, a hay rake and several spike-tooth harrows._

## Interjection

4. Used as a cry for help, or to express distress or alarm. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Used as a shout for help, or to show fear or alarm.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To tear or break something as a harrow would; to wound or lacerate.
- (noun) An obstacle made by turning an ordinary harrow upside down and burying its frame, so that the teeth point upward.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3** — From Middle English harwe, harow, from Old English *hearwa (perhaps ultimately related to harvest), or from Old Norse harfr, herfi; compare Danish harve (“harrow”) and Dutch hark (“rake”), and it is akin to Latin carpere. According to the OED, the verb senses come partly from the noun and partly from a by-form of the verb harry, from Old English hergian.
**Meaning 4** — Frankish *harot, *hara, meaning "here" or "hither" and formed from *hēr, gave Old French haro, harou or harau, which became Middle English harrow, harrowe or haro. Old Saxon herod, Old High German herot and Middle Dutch hare are related.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/harrow (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).