plow under

verb

plowed under; plowing under; plows under

transitive verb

: to cause to disappear : bury, overwhelm

Examples of plow under in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The first crash occurred in 2016, when a Tesla plowed under a semi-truck on a U.S. route in Florida. Jeremy B. Merrill, Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2023 In one case, expected to go before a jury in the coming months, a 50-year-old man driving on Autopilot was killed when his Tesla plowed under a semi truck. Trisha Thadani, Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2023 Consider all the Florida citrus groves plowed under to make room for housing developments and, more recently, the arrival of a greening disease, Huanglongbin, with 80 percent of the Florida citrus industry's trees afflicted and no cure yet found. Jamie Kitman, Car and Driver, 1 Apr. 2023 With the onset of the coronavirus, many farmers were forced to plow under crops or dump their milk, even as grocery store shelves emptied out and many American families went hungry. New York Times, 25 Mar. 2021 This spring, horrified Americans watched farmers dump milk and plow under vegetables, but the story of food waste and the novel coronavirus didn’t end there. Rachael Jackson, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2020 By combining Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, farmers did not have to plow under the weeds to control them. Andrew Moseman, Discover Magazine, 5 May 2010

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'plow under.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1900, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of plow under was in 1900

Dictionary Entries Near plow under

Cite this Entry

“Plow under.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plow%20under. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

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