forage

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   wander and feed

   The animals forage in the woods.

2. 2
   verb

   To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

   The message said that the party intended to hunt and forage through this region, for a month or two, afore it went back into the Canadas.

3. 3
   verb

   To rummage.

   Using the blankets for a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going on hands and knees, began to forage underneath the bed.

From Middle English forage, from Old French fourage, forage, a derivative of fuerre (“fodder, straw”), from Frankish *fōdar (“fodder, sheath”), from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (“fodder, feed, sheath”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, to feed”). Cognate with Old High German fuotar (German Futter (“fodder, feed”)), Old English fōdor, fōþer (“food, fodder, covering, case, basket”), Dutch voeder (“forage, food, feed”), Danish foder (“fodder, feed”), Icelandic fóðr (“fodder, sheath”). More at fodder, food. Unrelated to modern French forage (“drilling”), whose first element is ul...

Topics