Plower

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or machine that turns over soil with a plow before planting crops
2. Someone who works a field by cutting furrows into the earth with a plow
3. A worker, or a farm implement, that breaks up and turns over the ground for sowing

Etymology: "Plower" is a rare variant spelling of "plowman" or of "plower" in the sense of one who plows, built from "plow" with the agent suffix "-er," which turns a verb into a word for the person or thing doing the action. The pattern is the same one that gives us "baker," "singer," or "teacher": a plower is simply someone who plows. The word's interest lies mostly in its spelling. "Plow" is itself the American and older spelling of "plough," and forms like "plower" follow the shorter spelling so that the suffix attaches cleanly to the base. Readers encountering it in older or American texts will recognise it as the same agricultural occupation that "ploughman" names in British English.