means The act of scattering or planting seeds in soil so that crops will grow.

from From Old English 'sawan,' to scatter seed, descended from a Proto-Germanic root (compare German 'säen') and ultimately a Proto-Indo-European base meaning to sow — the same deep root that gives us 'seed' and 'semen.' It's one of farming's oldest verbs, so old that its proverbs — reaping what you sow, sowing wild oats — were already worn smooth by the time English wrote them down.