TILLAGE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tillage mean? 

• TILLAGE (noun)
  The noun TILLAGE has 2 senses:

1. arable land that is worked by plowing and sowing and raising crops

2. the cultivation of soil for raising crops

  Familiarity information: TILLAGE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TILLAGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Arable land that is worked by plowing and sowing and raising crops

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

cultivated land; farmland; ploughland; plowland; tillage; tilled land; tilth

Hypernyms ("tillage" is a kind of...):

ground; land; soil (material in the top layer of the surface of the earth in which plants can grow (especially with reference to its quality or use))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tillage"):

fallow (cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons)

Derivation:

till (work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The cultivation of soil for raising crops

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("tillage" is a kind of...):

culture (the raising of plants or animals)

Derivation:

till (work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation)

 Context examples 

Zero tillage is recommended to avoid high evaporation and transpiration in their plot.

(El Niño linked to widespread crop failures, SciDev.Net)

I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honour.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious people to see me; so that the villages were almost emptied; and great neglect of tillage and household affairs must have ensued, if his imperial majesty had not provided, by several proclamations and orders of state, against this inconveniency.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)