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PlainSpell

plough

/plaʊ/noun, verb

plough is spelled P-L-O-U-G-H: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 25,751st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “plough vs plow” about 480 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, plough means “A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of plough is ploughs.

How many letters and syllables are in plough?

Letters6: P-L-O-U-G-H
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.2 times per million words; the 25,751st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is plough?

Plough appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 25,751st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce plough?

  • US /plaʊ/
  • Australia /plæɔ/
  • /plæʊ/

Plough has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-plough.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with plough

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

plough vs plow480 G

Also written: plow.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with plough?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as plough from its last stressed vowel (/aʊ/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of plough

  • ploughs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • plow US
  • ploughing participle, present
  • ploughed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does plough mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting.

    Meronyms: ploughshare, plowshare, share, moldboard, mouldboard, coulter, colter, jointer, chisel, ploughbeam, beam, ploughstaff, staff, hake

  2. 2

    Ellipsis of snowplough.

    It's been three hours since a plough came through here, and now you can hardly even tell that it did! [the snow keeps falling heavily]

  3. 3

    A joiner's plane for making grooves.

  4. 4

    A bookbinder's implement for trimming or shaving off the edges of books.

  5. 5

    The use of a plough; tillage.

  6. 6

    Alternative form of Plough (Synonym of Ursa Major)

  7. 7

    Alternative form of ploughland, an alternative name for a carucate or hide.

  8. 8

    A yoga pose resembling a traditional plough, halāsana.

verb

  1. 1

    To use a plough on soil to prepare for planting.

    I've still got to plough that field.

  2. 2

    To use a plough.

    Some days I have to plough from sunrise to sunset.

  3. 3

    To move with force.

    Trucks ploughed through the water to ferry flood victims to safety.

  4. 4

    colloquialTo knock over or run over (someone) without stopping.

    My brother ploughed me over.

  5. 5

    To furrow; to make furrows, grooves, or ridges in.

  6. 6

    To run through, as in sailing.

  7. 7

    To trim, or shave off the edges of, as a book or paper, with a plough.

  8. 8

    To cut a groove in, as in a plank, or the edge of a board; especially, a rectangular groove to receive the end of a shelf or tread, the edge of a panel, a tongue, etc.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Plough in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcharrue, araire (swing-plough) (device pulled through the ground), labourer (use a plough on soil to prepare for planting), pilonner (vulgar: have sex with)
GermanPflug (device pulled through the ground), pflügen (use a plough on soil to prepare for planting), ficken (vulgar: have sex with)
Portuguesearado (device pulled through the ground), arar, lavrar (use a plough on soil to prepare for planting)
Spanisharado (device pulled through the ground), arar, labrar, barbechar, aladrar (use a plough on soil to prepare for planting), Carro Mayor (alternative name for Ursa Major)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does plough come from?

From Middle English plouh, plow, plugh(e), plough(e), plouw, from Old English plōh (“hide of land, ploughland”) and Old Norse plógr (“plough (the implement)”), both from Proto-Germanic *plōgaz, *plōguz (“plough”). Cognate with Scots pleuch, plou, North Frisian plog, West Frisian ploech, Low German Ploog, Dutch ploeg, Russian плуг (plug), German Pflug, Danish plov, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish plog, Icelandic plógur. Replaced Old English sulh (“plough, furrow”); see sullow.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after plough