tilled

verb

past tense of till
as in cultivated
to work by plowing, sowing, and raising crops on farmers tilling the soil from sunup to sunset

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tilled Ali’s father tilled tiny ancestral fields using an irrigation system developed during the Roman empire. — Literary Hub, 27 Aug. 2026 Creative soil has to be tilled every once in a while. — Peter Bogdanovich, IndieWire, 13 May 2026 Red clover can make a drought- and shade-tolerant lawn alternative, but it is more often grown as an annual winter cover crop and then tilled into the soil as green manure. — Hallie Milstein, Southern Living, 13 May 2026 Unlike parks or residential lawns, cemeteries are rarely dug up, tilled or redeveloped — which means the soil remains stable year after year. — Ryan Brennan, Charlotte Observer, 23 Apr. 2026 Solid manure from feedlots, poultry houses or composting dairy barns is spread and tilled under. — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 15 Mar. 2026 These tools – still carrying the soil from which they were tilled – represent the work of the immigrant farmworkers of all backgrounds who helped build California’s agriculture industry, which continues to feed the nation today. — Sam Vong, The Conversation, 18 Dec. 2025 The wheat fields themselves told their own story—deep brown and newly tilled in autumn, then green in spring, golden in summer. — Hannah Howard, Travel + Leisure, 22 Nov. 2025 The rest was tilled into the ground. — Jessica Winter, New Yorker, 4 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tilled
  1. cultivated
  2. planted
  3. farmed
  4. harvested
Verb
  • Eisenkot has cultivated a reputation for integrity, competence, and personal rectitude, forging relationships across Israel’s fractured political spectrum.
    — Eric Cortellessa, Time, 25 Oct. 2026
  • Smith, who previously worked at fashion house Loewe, sees an opportunity for technology to develop the same kind of recognizable identity that fashion brands have cultivated for decades.
    — Christopher Claxton, Billboard, 23 Oct. 2026
Definition of cultivated
Verb
  • Some Kurdish women describe violations of their bodily autonomy—having something foreign planted into the Kurdish female body through torture, rape, and trauma in the collective memory.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Oct. 2026
  • The memorial included plaques and a tree planted in Johnson's memory.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 27 Oct. 2026
Definition of planted
Verb
  • Playing his first game in the tournament, Shadab scored 113 not out off 96 balls and farmed most of the strike.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 25 Oct. 2026
  • Once-fringe parties advocating permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, and the expansion of settlements into areas where Palestinians have long lived or farmed, have gained a far more influential voice.
    — Ned Temko, Christian Science Monitor, 22 Oct. 2026
Definition of farmed
Verb
  • Traditionally, tobacco was harvested by hand, hung in a log barn and cured to a golden-brown with a wood fire that had to be stoked day and night.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 21 Oct. 2026
  • Lawsuit filed five years ago New Mexico's attorney general had sued Meta in 2021 following revelations that Cambridge Analytica had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 21 Oct. 2026
Definition of harvested

Browse Nearby Words

tillage
tilled
tiller
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Cite this Entry

“Tilled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tilled. Accessed 28 Oct. 2026.

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