Forage Meaning

/ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/
C1

Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounFodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

nounAn act or instance of foraging.

Look, today was 'sea harvest' so let's go forage for edible plants tomorrow!
Farmers mow the grass to forage.
Forage crops like clover and alfalfa could be planted.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
In winter, hungry deer must ____ deep in the snow to find hidden grass.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the wild, many animals must ____ for hours every day to find enough food to survive.

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 ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to pierce”).

"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." — 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
"To invade the corn, and to their cells convey / The plundered forage of their yellow prey" — 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:
"He [the lion] from forage will incline to play." — 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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
"[Charles] Mawhood completed his forage unmolested, and returned to Philadelphia." — 1805, John Marshall, chapter VIII, in The Life of George Washington, […], volume III, Philadelphia, Pa.: […] C. P. Wayne, →OCLC, page 439:
"‘My dears,’ he discourses to them — how he licks his gums, long toothless, as he speaks of his forages into the well-stored cellars: […]" — 1860 September, “A Chapter on Rats”, in The Knickerbocker, volume 56, number 3, page 304:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
In winter, hungry deer must ____ deep in the snow to find hidden grass.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the wild, many animals must ____ for hours every day to find enough food to survive.

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