Definition of "forage"

forage

/ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural forages
1. Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
  Quotations
  “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.
  1820, Walter Scott, “”, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […]
  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, […]
2. An act or instance of foraging.
  Quotations
  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, [Act IV, scene i]
  Mawhood completed his forage unmolested.
  1803, John Marshall, The Life of George Washington
  ‘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
3. (obsolete) The demand for fodder etc by an army from the local population
verb
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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1841, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 8, in The Deerslayer
2. To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
  Quotations
  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.
  1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
3. To rummage.
  Quotations
  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.
  1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne, “The Cabin of the ‘Flying Scud’”, in The Wrecker, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, […], page 218
4. Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.

Definition of "forage"

forage

noun

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verb

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