drove

plural droves

1. A cattle drive, or a drive of another livestock animal (e.g. sheep).
   1. collectiveThe herd being driven in a cattle (or other animal) drive; thus, a number of animals driven to market or new pastures; a group of livestock animals more generally.

      Synonyms: drift

   2. broadlyfigurativelyplural normallyA large number of people on the move.

      in droves

   3. collectiveA group of other animals, especially hares when seen in coursing or hunting.

      she and her companion got among a regular drove of hares

      1894, Dromas, “Review of Coursing Season, 1893-94”, in The Greyhound Stud Book, volume Volume 13, National Coursing Club, page 120

      2 more examples

      The boy hunters had arrived at the wood grove, far off from the wary drove of hares, who resumed foraging cautiously, as before.

      2026, T.D. Motley, Planting and Painting the Landscape: A Sequel to The Art of Farming, Stoney Creek Publishing Group

      The winner got amongst a drove of hares, and was run to a stand still.

      1892, Robert Abram Welsh, Thomas Thacker, “The Coursing Catalogue”, in The [afterw.] Thacker's Courser's annual remembrancer and stud book, by T. Thacker (R.A. Welsh), page 260

2. A road or track along which cattle are habitually, used to be or could be driven; a droveway.
3. A narrow drain or channel used in the irrigation of land.
4. A broad chisel used to bring stone to a nearly smooth surface.
5. The grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel.

1. pastsimple past of drive

   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.

   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

   1 more example

   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.

   1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157

2. dialectalparticiplepastpast participle of drive

   Not the Horn-Plague, but something worse, Had drove the frighted Cucks from thence.

   1706, Edward Ward, Hudibras redivivus, I.10

   2 more examples

   Then, being on his knees between my thighs, he drew up his ſhirt, and bared all his hairy thighs, and ſtiff ſtaring truncheon, red-topt, and rooted into a thicket of curls, which cover’d his belly to his navel, and gave it the air of a fleſh-bruſh: and ſoon I felt it joining cloſe to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on both ſides.

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, pages 165–166

   We are appealing to any individuals who "have" drove that road who may well have [...]

   2019 April 17, Ch Insp Lee, quotee, BBC News

present singular third person droves · participle present droving · participle past droved · past droved

1. To herd cattle; particularly over a long distance.

   He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.

   1890, Banjo Paterson, The Man from Snowy River

   1 more example

   He was droving his mob of fats to Derby, to ship by the southern boat for Fremantle.

   1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 11

   Synonyms: drive

2. transitiveTo finish (stone) with a drove chisel.