Definition of "sow"

sow¹

/saʊ/

noun
plural sows or swine
1. A female pig.
2. A female bear, she-bear.
  Quotations
  Lucky he wasn't a sow. They've usually just dropped a cub this time of year. A sow would have been cranky as hell.
  1995, Dana Stabenow, Play with Fire, page 11
3. A female guinea pig.
4. A channel that conducts molten metal to molds.
5. A mass of metal solidified in a mold.
  Quotations
  In England, it was generally termed a 'sow', if the weight was above 10 cwts., if below, it was termed a 'pig' from which the present term 'pig iron' is derived.
  1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 160
6. (derogatory, slang) A contemptible, often fat woman.
7. A sowbug.
8. (military) A kind of covered shed, formerly used by besiegers in filling up and passing the ditch of a besieged place, sapping and mining the wall, etc.

sow²

/səʊ/

verb
third-person singular simple present sows, present participle sowing, simple past sowed, past participle sown or sowed
1. (transitive, intransitive) To scatter, disperse, or plant (seeds).
2. (figurative) To spread abroad; to propagate.
  Quotations
  And sow dissension in the hearts of brothers.
  1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, Act I, scene i, page 6
  Not surprisingly, it has sown doubt among other operators of diesel-hydraulics; [...].
  1963 June, G. Freeman Allen, “The success of diesel-hydraulics on the German Federal Railway”, in Modern Railways, page 386
3. (figurative) To scatter over; to besprinkle.
  Quotations
  The intellectual faculty is a goodly field, […] and it is the worst husbandry in the world to sow it with trifles.
  a. 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677
  [He] sowd with Starrs the heav'n.
  1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,
4. Obsolete spelling of sew