forage

plural forages

1. countableuncountableFodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

   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

   1 more example

   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

2. countableuncountableAn act or instance of foraging.

   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]

   2 more examples

   [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

3. countableobsoleteuncountableThe demand for fodder, etc., by an army from the local population.

present singular third person forages · participle present foraging · participle past foraged · past foraged

1. To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

   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.

   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 (date written), 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, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

3. To rummage.

   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, […], →OCLC, page 218

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