Harrow

How to spell harrow

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce harrow

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does harrow mean?

1. nounA heavy frame fitted with teeth or discs, dragged across ploughed land to break up and level the soil.
2. verbTo break up and level soil by dragging a toothed frame over it.
3. verbTo cause someone acute mental distress or anguish.

Harrow in a sentence

• noun

  The rusty harrow stood at the edge of the field all winter.

• verb

  The farmer plans to harrow the field once the ploughing is done.

• verb

  The endless reports of the disaster continued to harrow viewers for weeks.

• noun

  He hitched the harrow to the back of the tractor before lunch.

• verb

  They harrow the ground each spring to prepare the seedbed.

• verb

  Such graphic images can harrow even the most experienced nurses.

Where does harrow come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Harrow comes from the Middle English harwe, a word for the toothed wooden or iron frame dragged across ploughed land to break up clods and cover seed. Its deeper origin is uncertain, though it is widely thought to descend from a Germanic root and is plausibly related to the Old Norse herfi, which named the same kind of farming implement; some scholars also connect it to words meaning 'to scrape' or 'to tear'. The literal action of the tool, raking and tearing at the earth, gave rise during the late Middle Ages to the vivid figurative verb 'to harrow', meaning to wound the feelings or distress someone deeply, which survives today mainly in the adjective 'harrowing'. The double 'r' and the unstressed second syllable are the spelling traps, since the word sounds like a single quick beat. It is unrelated to the English town and surname Harrow, which has its own separate place-name history.

How the word is built

• harrow (whole word, from Middle English harwe: a toothed cultivating frame); no separable prefix or suffix