Fallow

Word of the Day for Monday, August 13, 2012

Fallow \FAL-oh\, adjective:

1. Not in use; inactive: My creative energies have lain fallow this year.
2. (Of land) plowed and left unseeded for a season or more; uncultivated.

noun:
1. Land that has undergone plowing and harrowing and has been left unseeded for one or more growing seasons.

verb:
1. To make (land) fallow for agricultural purposes.

The two men stopped in the road and looked out at the valley, green tinged from the early rains. Samuel said softly, “I wonder you do not feel a shame at leaving that land fallow.”
-- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

They were a limited, narrow-minded people, whose inert intellects lay fallow in incurious resignation.
-- T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Fallow comes from the Old English word fælging from the tool that was used to break up clods of dirt.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com