foray

plural forays · alternative obsolete forrey

1. A sudden or irregular incursion in border warfare; hence, any irregular incursion for war or spoils; a raid.
2. A brief excursion or attempt, especially outside one's accustomed sphere.

   Bastian Schweinsteiger and Muller were among many who should have added the third, and City were limited to rare forays with the excellent Boateng pinching the ball off Aguero and Aleksandar Kolarov shooting wide in stoppage time.

   2011 September 27, Alistair Magowan, “Bayern Munich 2 - 0 Man City”, in BBC Sport

present singular third person forays · participle present foraying · participle past forayed · past forayed · alternative obsolete forrey

1. To participate in a foray.

   The people of Granada resumed all at once their ancient activity, foraying into the Christian territories, surprising Alhendin and some other places of less importance, and stirring up the spirit of revolt in Guadix and other conquered cities.

   1837, William Hickling Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic

2. To do or attempt something outside one's typical area of expertise.

   Over the summer, I'd been following the news cycle, foraying into online journalism, and I wrote a couple of pieces on male victims of sexual violence, who are often left to the margins or forgotten altogether in feminist accounts of rape culture.

   2018, Abigail Rine Favale, Into the Deep

   1 more example

   "It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of my life. And you, too, seem a part of it. You are -- " I was on the verge of saying, "my woman, my mate," but glibly changed it to -- "standing the hardship well."

   1904, Jack London, chapter 30, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC

3. archaictransitiveTo scour an area for goods as part of a foray.

   Bruce forayed Cumberland, and threatened Berwick, so that the poor Countess of Buchan was removed from thence to a more secure place of captivity.

   1857, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

   1 more example

   He bad to open wyde his brazen gate, Which long time had bene shut, and out of hond Proclaymed joy and peace through all his state; For dead now was their foe which them forrayed late.

   1590, Edward Spenser, The Faerie Queene