Meaning & use
mown
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“mown” is a form of “mow”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Cut short with a mower or blade, used especially of grass and hay.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: a freshly mown lawn.
Patterns
- freshly mown grass
- newly mown lawn
The smell of freshly mown grass drifted through the window.
They sat on the neatly mown lawn behind the church.
A mown path led from the gate to the pond.
verbtransitive
Past participle of mow, meaning to have cut grass or a crop.
Grammar: Used after has or have or in the passive: the lawn has been mown. Mowed is the usual alternative form in American English.
Patterns
- has been mown
- have mown something
The field had been mown just before the rain started.
He has mown the lawn every Saturday since spring.
Most of the meadow was mown by the end of June.
Word forms
| base form | mow |
|---|---|
| third person singular | mows |
| past tense | mowed |
| past participle | mown |
| -ing form | mowing |
Common combinations
- freshly mown
- The park was full of the scent of freshly mown grass.
- newly mown lawn
- The children rolled on the newly mown lawn.
- closely mown
- The golf green was closely mown and perfectly flat.
- mown hay
- Mown hay lay in rows waiting to be collected.
- neatly mown
- The cemetery had neatly mown paths between the graves.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cut
- Cut is the everyday, general word, while mown is specific to grass or crops cut with a blade or machine.
- trimmed
- Trimmed means tidied at the edges or shortened slightly, but mown means cut down across a whole area.
- clipped
- Clipped suggests snipping with scissors or shears, usually for hedges, whereas mown suggests a mower on a lawn.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: mown or mowed?
mown vs mowed
Mowed is the regular past tense and also a past participle. Mown is only a past participle, so we say he mowed the lawn but the lawn was mown.
Practice
The lawn had been ___ only an hour before the guests arrived.
Choose one answer.
After had been, you need a past participle, and mown is the irregular one for mow. Mowing and mows are the wrong forms, and moan is a different word.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mown”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.