fallow

fallow¹ pale yellowish colour

Etymology

The word for the pale yellowish colour is inherited from Middle English falwe, also falow,^[4][5] inherited from Old English fealu, also fealo,^[6][5][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *falwaz,^[7][1][2][9] the source also of Old Saxon falu, Middle Dutch vale, Dutch vaal, Old High German falo, German fahl and falb, and Old Norse fǫlr.^[10][7][11] Outside Germanic it is related to Lithuanian palvas (“straw-coloured, pale yellow”),^[10] Ancient Greek πολιός (poliós, “grey”),^[8][7] Latin palleō (“to be pale”) and probably pallidus (“pale”),^[10][7] and Welsh llwyd (“grey”),^[2] all from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“pale”).^[6][7][8] Ayto gives the ancestor of the Germanic word as *polwos.^[1] The Germanic adjective is also the source of French fauve (“wild animal”), and so of fauvism.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A reddish or brownish yellow: Barnhart's first record is Beowulf, which it dates to about 725.^[7] The OED's first quotation is Old English Riddle 15, where the word describes the hide of a wild animal, probably a fox.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word was used far more widely than it is now: of flame, birds' feet, a horse, withered grass or leaves, waters and roads.^[6] The OED notes that its range, especially in verse, where it can describe the sea or its waves, has been much discussed, and that such uses may point to brightness rather than to a particular hue.^[10] It could also describe a pale face,^[10] and a verb from the same base meant to fade or wither (Old English to 1480) and to blanch or grow pale (before 1250 to 1598).^[10] In Middle English it meant sallow, dusky or faded, and was used of a bay horse.^[4][7] Johnson (1755) gives "pale red, or pale yellow", quoting Shakespeare's fallow greyhound and Clarendon on fallow deer.^[12] The colour word is now found chiefly in the name fallow deer,^[2][7][1] which the OED records from about 1410, in the Master of Game.^[10][7]

Timeline

• c. 725 – reddish or brownish yellow, in Beowulf.^[7]
• Old English – verb, to become pale or yellow, to fade (obsolete after 1480).^[10]
• before 1200 – falewe, sallow, faded, in Layamon's Brut.^[7][4]
• before 1250 – verb, of the face, to grow pale (obsolete after 1598).^[10]
• c. 1410 – fallow deer; also a noun for the colour (obsolete after 1889).^[10][7]
• 1611 – noun, a fallow deer, in Cotgrave.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a pale brownish or reddish yellow, especially of an animal's coat: a fallow hound.^[5][10][13]
2. Of deer, of the species Dama dama; chiefly in fallow deer.^[10][13]

Noun

1. A light yellowish-brown colour.^[5]
2. A fallow deer, or such deer collectively.^[10]

Word family

• fallow deer

fallow² ploughed land left unsown

Etymology

The word for ploughed land left unsown is inherited from Middle English falwe, also falow,^[4][7] inherited from Old English fealh, also fealg,^{[10][7][2][8]} from Proto-Germanic *falgō (“fallow land”),^[11][6][14] the source also of Old Frisian fallach (“arable land”), Middle Low German valge (“ploughed land”) and Old High German felga (“ploughed land”),^[10][11] with German Felge.^[6][7] The OED and Kroonen connect it with Gaulish olca (“arable land”),^[10][11] and the OED also with Slavic words for a strip of arable land.^[10] Etymonline tentatively suggests a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to fold”),^[6] and Barnhart gives *pelk- (“to turn”).^[7] Hoad and Merriam-Webster Unabridged derive the verb, Old English fealgian (“to break up land for sowing”), from the noun,^[2][5] while the Shorter Oxford takes the noun as probably coming from the verb.^[13] The adjective is from the noun.^[10][4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ploughed land: the first record is the early Old English Cleopatra Glossary.^[10] All the Old English records are glosses on forms of Medieval Latin occa, whose sense in Aldhelm is disputed,^[10][4] and Bosworth–Toller's main volume glossed the word "a harrow", which its supplement replaced with "fallow land".^[15]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant land that had been ploughed, a sense that lasted until 1728,^[10][1] and it also came to mean an act of ploughing (before 1500 to 1872).^[10] From about 1450 it named ground left uncultivated after ploughing and harrowing so that it could recover its fertility,^[10] although Etymonline dates that sense to the 1520s and the Shorter Oxford to the early 16th century.^[6][13] The adjective appears in 1377, of land that should lye falwe,^[10][4][7] and its use for ground ploughed ready for sowing lasted only from 1530 to 1627.^[10] Etymonline reports the OED's view that the word was assimilated to the colour word, fallow¹, probably because of the colour of ploughed earth;^[6] Johnson (1755) and Weekley say much the same.^[12][16] Figurative use starts in 1588,^[10] and by 1791 a fallow period could be one of mere inaction.^[10] Dialect use stayed closer to the ploughing: in Wiltshire a fallow was the repeated ploughing that cleans foul land, and in Bedfordshire in 1813 it was the first ploughing of a field, before the stirring and the laying-up.^[17]

Timeline

• Old English – noun, ploughed land (obsolete after 1728).^[10]
• late Old English – verb, to plough or break up land.^[10]
• 1377 – adjective, of land left uncultivated, in lye falwe.^[10][4][7]
• c. 1450 – ground left uncultivated after ploughing to restore its fertility.^[10]
• before 1500 – an act of ploughing (obsolete after 1872).^[10]
• c. 1523 – the state of being fallow, or a period of it.^[10]
• 1530 – adjective, ploughed ready for sowing (obsolete after 1627).^[10]
• 1588 – figurative use of the adjective.^[10]
• 1791 – of a period of time, marked by inaction.^[10]
• 1849 – verb, of land, to lie fallow.^[10]
• 1873 – verb, to allow land to lie fallow.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of land, left unsown after being ploughed and harrowed, so as to regain its fertility; not cultivated: The farmer let the north field lie fallow.^[18][5][10]
2. Of an idea or state of mind, undeveloped or inactive but potentially useful.^[18][10]
3. Of a period of time, marked by inaction or a lack of productive work.^[10]
4. Of a female animal, not pregnant.^[5]
5. (obsolete, 1530–1627) Ploughed ready for sowing.^[10][5]

Noun

1. Land left unsown after ploughing and harrowing; a piece of such land.^[18][5][10]
2. The state of being fallow, or a period during which land lies fallow.^[10]
3. The ploughing or tilling of land without sowing it.^[5][10]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1728) Ploughed land.^[10][5][13]

Verb

1. To plough and harrow land and leave it unsown, to destroy weeds and improve the soil.^{[18][5][10][13]}
2. Of land, to lie fallow; also, to allow land to lie fallow.^[10]
3. (obsolete) To plough land for sowing.^[5][13]

Word family

• fallowness
• fallowing
• unfallowed
• ecofallow