sowing

Pluralsowings

1. 1
   planting seedsverb

   Present participle and gerund of sow.

   Volunteers spent the morning sowing wildflower seeds along the highway.

   Sowing doubt is far easier than rebuilding trust afterward.

   Note

   The -ing form goes into figures of speech as readily as into fields: sowing seeds and sowing doubt are built the same way, with the thing spread as the object, and the figurative objects are usually unwelcome ones such as doubt or dissension. It belongs only to the verb; sow the female pig is a noun and has no -ing form.

2. 2
   the plantingnouncountable or uncountable

   The act or process of scattering or planting seed, or of spreading anything else that can be sown.

   The sowing of the fields took the whole family most of a week.

   Annual sowings of oats and rye kept the soil covered through the winter.

   Similarplanting, seeding

   Note

   As a noun the word takes the and an of phrase where the gerund would take an object: the sowing of the fields, against sowing the fields. Counted, it means separate rounds of planting, so a farm can have annual sowings of wheat, each one a distinct event on the calendar.

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