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Etymology and origin of the English word farrow

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈfæɹəʊ/[1]
  • US: /ˈfæɹoʊ/, /ˈfɛɹoʊ/[1]

farrow1 litter of pigs

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Épinal Glossary
Inherited from
Middle English farwen via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos

Etymology

The word for a young pig or a litter of pigs is inherited from Middle English farow, recorded about 1425 as fare,[2][1] inherited from Old English fearh (“young pig”), also færh.[3][4][5][6][7] It comes from Proto-West Germanic *farh,[1][6] Proto-Germanic *farhaz (“young pig”),[4][1][2][8] the source also of Old High German farah, Middle High German varch and the diminutives Middle Low German ferken, Dutch varken and German Ferkel.[3][4][8] The Germanic word continues Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos,[1] which Etymonline gives as *porko- (“young pig”),[4] the source of Latin porcus (“pig”), Ancient Greek πόρκος (pórkos), Lithuanian paršas (“gelded pig, barrow”) and Old Irish orc.[3][6][9][10] Kroonen notes a possible link with Greek pórkos "fishing net" and an Armenian word for hunt, catch, game, which would mean that the word first meant the wild boar rather than the farm animal;[8] Wiktionary takes the root as *perḱ- (“to dig”).[1] The verb is inherited from Middle English farwen, recorded in the “Ancrene Riwle” and not found in Old English;[11][2][3] Merriam-Webster derives it from an assumed *feargian, from the noun.[9][2] The same Latin word gave pork, and the Dutch one is the second part of aardvark.[4][12][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young pig: Old English, in the Épinal Glossary, where færh glosses Latin porcellus.[3][5] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 700.[2]

Semantic evolution

The original sense was a single young pig, which lasted until about 1820.[3] Shakespeare still used it so in Macbeth, "her nine farrow",[2][13] and Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "a little pig" and the verb as "to bring pigs", used only of swine.[13] The sense "a litter of pigs" appears in 1577, in Googe's translation of Heresbach's book on husbandry,[3][2] probably through the verb,[4] which is recorded from the early 13th century.[4][3] The OED counts the sense "an act of farrowing" (1601) as properly a noun from the verb,[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun "litter of pigs" to 1577.[9] The verb was used of a sow giving birth from the Ancrene Riwle on, and in Middle English also of other animals having young.[11][3]

Timeline

  • Old English – fearh, a young pig (obsolete by about 1820).[3][5]
  • c. 1225 – verb, of a sow, to give birth to young.[3][2]
  • 1340 – verb, intransitive, to produce a litter.[3]
  • 1577 – a litter of pigs, and in farrow, with young.[3][9]
  • 1601 – an act of farrowing.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A litter of pigs.[9][14][3]
  2. An act of giving birth to pigs.[9][3]
  3. in farrow: of a sow, pregnant.[3][7]

Verb

  1. Of a sow, to give birth to piglets: The sow farrowed eleven piglets in the night.[9][14][3]

Word family

  • farrowing
  • unfarrowed

farrow2 not in calf

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1494
Borrowed from
Middle Dutch *verwe- via Middle English

Etymology

The adjective for a cow not in calf is first recorded in Scots, as inherited from Middle English ferow or ferrow,[9][3] and its origin is uncertain: the OED calls it of unknown derivation.[3] It is probably borrowed from Middle Dutch *verwe-, an unrecorded Flemish dialect word,[9][14] seen in West Flemish verwekoe and varwekoe, a cow that has stopped bearing calves, spelled verrekoe by Kilian in the 16th century.[3][9][7] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com relate it to Old English fearr (“bull, ox”),[9][15][1] a word Holthausen compares with Middle Low German varre.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a cow, not with calf: 1494, in a Scottish legal record.[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to the 15th century,[9] Dictionary.com to 1485–95.[15]

Semantic evolution

The word was used in phrases such as to be, go or run farrow, and farrow-farrow meant barren in two seasons in a row.[3] Wright's dialect dictionary records it in Scotland, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Pembrokeshire, East Anglia and Cornwall, and in America, in forms such as farra, ferra and verra, usually in farrow cow, a cow that misses calving for a season and goes on giving milk; in Cornwall a cow milked for seven months after calving and then fattened for slaughter.[17] In some places it also meant giving no milk.[17]

Timeline

  • 1494 – of a cow, not in calf.[3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of a cow, not in calf; not having calved in a given year.[9][14][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  16. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

  • brick · also from Middle Dutch
  • cooper · also from Middle Dutch
  • pump · also from Middle Dutch
  • spray · also from Middle Dutch
  • tackle · also from Middle Dutch
  • drum · also from Middle Dutch
  • leak · also from Middle Dutch
  • dump · also from Middle Dutch
Cite this entry

“Farrow.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/farrow. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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