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drove. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
drove, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
drove in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
drove you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic *draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.
Noun
drove (plural droves)
- A cattle drive or the herd being driven by it; thus, a number of cattle driven to market or new pastures.
- (figuratively, by extension, usually in the plural) A large number of people on the move.
- in droves
- (collective) A group of hares.
- A road or track along which cattle are habitually, used to be or coil be driven; a droveway.
- A narrow drain or channel used in the irrigation of land.
- A broad chisel used to bring stone to a nearly smooth surface.
- The grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel.
Derived terms
Translations
number of cattle driven to market or new pastures
- Bulgarian: черда (čerda), стадо (bg) (stado)
- Dutch: kudde (nl)
- French: troupeau (fr) m, manade (fr) f, horde (fr) f
- German: Herde (de) f
- Italian: mandria (it) f, armento (it) m, branco (it) m
- Maori: whiunga
- Russian: гурт (ru) m (gurt), ста́до (ru) n (stádo)
- Serbo-Croatian: stado (sh) n
- Spanish: manada (es) f, tropa (es) f (Arg., Bol., Par. and Ur.)
- Turkish: sürü (tr)
- Ukrainian: табун m (tabun), стадо n (stado)
- Welsh: diadell f, gyr m, praidd m, haid f
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large number of people on the move
road or track along which cattle are habitually driven
— see also droveway
narrow drain for irrigation
broad chisel for stoneworking
grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel
Etymology 2
From earlier drave, from Middle English drave, draf, from Old English drāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite of drīfan (“to drive”).
Verb
drove
- simple past of drive
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town.
1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157:Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.
- (dialectal) past participle of drive
2019 April 17, Ch Insp Lee, quotee, BBC News:We are appealing to any individuals who "have" drove that road who may well have [...]
Verb
drove (third-person singular simple present droves, present participle droving, simple past and past participle droved)
- To herd cattle; particularly over a long distance.
- Synonym: drive
1890, Banjo Paterson, The Man from Snowy River:He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.
- (transitive) To finish (stone) with a drove chisel.
Translations
to herd cattle, to move cattle over a long distance
References
- ^ 1858, Peter Lund Simmonds, The Dictionary of Trade Products
Anagrams
Middle English
Adjective
drove
- Alternative form of drof