farrow

See also: Farrow

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfæɹəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfæɹoʊ/, /ˈfɛɹoʊ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɹəʊ
• Hyphenation: farr‧ow
• Homophone: pharaoh (one pronunciation)

Etymology 1

From Middle English *farow, *fargh (found only in the plural faren), from Old English fearh (“piglet”), from Proto-West Germanic *farh, from Proto-Germanic *farhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos, from *perḱ- (“to dig”).

See also Old High German farah, Middle Irish orc (“piglet”), Latin porcus, Proto-Slavic *porsę (“pig, piglet”), Lithuanian par̃šas, Avestan: 𐬞𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬯𐬀 (pər^əsa). Doublet of pork.

Noun

farrow (plural farrows)

1. A litter of piglets.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 15]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow!

   • 1927, Henry William Williamson, Tarka the Otter, Chapter 19:

     At full speed he ran into a pigsty, where a sow was lying on her side with a farrow of eleven tugging at her.

   • 1949, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

     She is the womb and the tomb: the sow that eats her farrow.

Translations

litter of piglets

• Bulgarian: прасило (bg) n (prasilo)
• Catalan: garrinada (ca) f
• Czech: vrh selat m
• Danish: kuld (da) n
• Finnish: pahnue (fi)
• German: Wurf Ferkel m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kull (no) n, kull grisunger n

  Nynorsk: kull n, kull grisungar n

• Polish: miot prosiąt m
• Portuguese: ninhada de leitões f
• Russian: опоро́с (ru) m (oporós)
• Spanish: lechigada (de cochinillos) f
• Swedish: kull (sv) c

Etymology 2

From Middle English farwen, from the noun.

Verb

farrow (third-person singular simple present farrows, present participle farrowing, simple past and past participle farrowed)

1. To give birth to (a litter of piglets).

Derived terms

• farrowing
• unfarrowed

Translations

give birth to (a litter of piglets)

• Bulgarian: опрасвам се (oprasvam se)
• Catalan: garrinar (ca)
• Czech: oselit se, vrhnout (cs)
• Danish: få grise, fare (da)
• Faroese: leggja
• Finnish: porsia (fi)
• German: ferkeln (de)
• Italian: figliare (it)
• Middle English: farowen
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: grise (no), få grisunger

  Nynorsk: grise, få grisungar

• Polish: prosić się impf
• Portuguese: parir (pt)
• Romanian: făta (ro)
• Russian: пороси́ться (ru) impf (porosítʹsja), опороси́ться (ru) pf (oporosítʹsja)
• Swedish: grisa (sv)

Etymology 3

Cognate with Old English fearr (“bull”).

Adjective

farrow (not comparable)

1. (of cows) Not pregnant; not producing young (not calving) in a given season or year; barren.

Translations

not pregnant; not calving in a given year; barren

• Czech: jalová
• German: nicht trächtig
• Russian: я́ловая (ru) f (jálovaja)