forage
Plural: forages
Noun
- bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle
- the act of searching for food and provisions
- Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
- An act or instance of foraging.
- The demand for fodder etc by an army from the local population
Verb
Verb Forms: foraged, foraging, forages
- To search widely for food or provisions; to rummage.
- collect or look around for (food)
- wander and feed
- "The animals forage in the woods"
- To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.
- To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
- To rummage.
- Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.
Examples
- Players often forage their tile rack, hoping to discover a high-scoring word.
Origin / 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, fōþer (“food, fodder, covering, case, basket”), Dutch voeder (“forage, food, feed”), Danish foder (“fodder, feed”), Icelandic fóðr (“fodder, sheath”). More at fodder, food.
Scrabble Score: 10
forage: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordforage: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
forage: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary