forage

English

Etymology

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, fōþor (“food, fodder, covering, case, basket”), Dutch voeder (“forage, food, feed”), Danish foder (“fodder, feed”), Icelandic fóðr (“fodder, sheath”). More at fodder, food.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfoɹɪd͡ʒ/,
• (NYC, Ireland) IPA^(key): /ˈfɑɹɪd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒɹɪdʒ

Noun

forage (countable and uncountable, plural forages)

1. Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, “”, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. , volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. , →OCLC:

     “The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger.

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     To invade the corn, and to their cells convey
     The plundered forage of their yellow prey

2. An act or instance of foraging.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     He [the lion] from forage will incline to play.

   • 1803, John Marshall, The Life of George Washington:

     Mawhood completed his forage unmolested.

   • 1860 September, “A Chapter on Rats”, in The Knickerbocker, volume 56, number 3, page 304:

     ‘My dears,’ he discourses to them — how he licks his gums, long toothless, as he speaks of his forages into the well-stored cellars: […]

3. (obsolete) The demand for fodder etc by an army from the local population

Derived terms

Related terms

• foray

Translations

Further reading

• Forage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Forage in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Verb

forage (third-person singular simple present forages, present participle foraging, simple past and past participle foraged)

1. To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.
   • 1841, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 8, in The Deerslayer:

     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.

2. To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, / Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, / Making defeat on the full power of France, / Whiles his most mighty father on a hill / Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp / Forage in blood of French nobility.

3. To rummage.
   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne, “The Cabin of the ‘Flying Scud’”, in The Wrecker, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, , →OCLC, page 218:

     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.

4. Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.

Derived terms

• forager

Translations

French

Etymology

From forer +‎ -age.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɔ.ʁaʒ/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

forage m (plural forages)

1. drilling (act of drilling)

Derived terms

Further reading

• “forage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• fforage

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French fourage; the first element is cognate to fodder.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɔːˈraːdʒ(ə)/, /fɔˈraːdʒ(ə)/

Noun

forage (uncountable)

1. forage (especially dry)

Descendants

• English: forage

References

• “fō̆rāǧe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-17.