Forage

How to spell forage

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce forage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forage mean?

1. verbTo search widely for food or provisions, especially in the wild or among scattered sources.
2. nounFood, especially bulky feed such as hay or grass, gathered for horses and cattle.

Forage in a sentence

• verb

  The volunteers learned to forage for wild mushrooms in the autumn woods.

• noun

  The farmer stored enough forage to feed the herd through the winter.

• verb

  Goats will forage across the hillside for whatever scrub they can find.

• noun

  A shortage of forage forced the ranch to buy in extra hay.

Where does forage come from?

Language of origin: French

Forage entered English in the 1300s from the Old French word fourrage, meaning 'fodder' or 'food for horses and cattle'. That noun was built on fuerre, an Old French term for straw or animal feed, which was itself borrowed from a Germanic source related to the same root that gives us 'fodder' and 'food'. The earliest English uses were strictly military and agricultural: a foraging party went out to gather hay, grain, and supplies for an army's animals. Over time the verb broadened from gathering feed for livestock to any rummaging search for provisions, and today we happily talk about foraging for mushrooms or even rummaging through a cupboard. The single medial 'r' and the soft '-age' ending (rhyming with 'porridge', not 'cage') are the spots where writers slip.

How the word is built

• forage (from Old French fourrage: fodder, animal feed)