Farrows

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A narrow trench or groove made in the soil for planting seeds or for irrigation purposes
2. a series of such trenches used in agriculture for efficient crop growing
3. the act of creating these grooves to facilitate planting and water distribution in farming

Etymology: The word "farrows" is the plural of "farrow," which has two distinct senses that share a surprising origin. The sense of a litter of piglets came first. It descends from Old English "fearh," meaning "piglet," which traces back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to dig," the same idea behind the pig's rooting snout. The word is a doublet of "pork," meaning the two words entered English by different routes from the same ancestor, one through native Germanic speech and the other through French and Latin "porcus." The planting sense is a later development that grew from the verb. Farrow as a verb meaning to bring forth a litter of pigs came from the noun, and it was from that verb that "farrowing" and related uses took shape. The agricultural term for a narrow furrow is linked to a separate Old English word, "fearr," meaning "bull," which shows how readily farming vocabulary drew on animal names.