Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of ploughshare.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The idea of converting swords into ploughshares is as old as the Bible.

    A Modern Foreign Policy 1990

  • In dozens of research centres around the world (with our own Chalk River outstanding among them), nuclear scientists and engineers are forging, with infinite care, the most productive "ploughshares" the world has ever known.

    Putting The Atom To Work 1960

  • In all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops and foundries of Japan tens of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into myriads of useful things such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), gasoline engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wire, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for railways.

    Goliah 1910

  • In all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops and foundries of Japan tens of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into myriads of useful things such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), gasoline engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wire, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for railways.

    Goliah 1910

  • It is "ploughing time" for the world again, and ploughing time not only because we turn from instruments of war to those of peace, symbolized since the days of Isaiah by the "ploughshares" beaten from swords, but because we must turn to the cultivation with _thoroughness_ and _patience_ not only of our acres but of the minds that are alike to have world horizons in this new season of the earth.

    Modern American Prose Selections 1898

  • In all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares

    Revolution, and Other Essays Jack London 1896

  • And when he emerged he was a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.

    Goliah 2010

  • The Lord shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

    Jim Wallis: The Top 3 Signs This War Will End Jim Wallis 2011

  • In the past few months, I have seen some hopeful signs that we are getting ready to turn at least some of our swords into ploughshares:

    Jim Wallis: The Top 3 Signs This War Will End Jim Wallis 2011

  • Nestlé exists, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe says, because as Europe's population "urbanized," as people moved to the cities and traded their ploughshares for time cards, "somebody had to ensure that people" who worked 12 hours a day in a factory could feed themselves.

    Can the World Still Feed Itself? Brian M. Carney 2011

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