rowed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of row.

   The crew rowed steadily against a strong current for hours.

   Two fishermen rowed their skiff out past the breakwater at dawn.

   Note

   One spelling serves as both past tense and participle: they rowed home, they have rowed home, the boat was rowed ashore. It works with or without an object (rowed the skiff, rowed hard). It also carries the quarreling row, so "the neighbors rowed all night" is about raised voices, not oars. The "in rows" adjective is a separate word with the same spelling, built from the noun for a line.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having things arranged in one or more rows, sometimes with the number of rows specified.

   The carefully rowed vines stretched in parallel lines toward the hills.

   Brewers often prefer two-rowed barley over the six-rowed kind for cleaner flavor.

   Note

   Mostly a counting word, it does its real work in compounds that sort plants by how many rows they carry: a twelve-rowed ear of corn, two-rowed barley. Put the number first and hyphenate it before the noun. Because it classifies rather than describes, it does not take more or most. An ear is twelve-rowed or it is not.

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