drover

Etymology

It is formed from English drove + -er,^[2][3][4][5] in Middle English drovare.^[6] The base is from Old English drāf (“a herd; beasts driven in a body”),^[3][7] which shows an ablaut variant of the Germanic base of drive,^[2] drīfan (“to drive”).^[3][7] The word must be older than its first record: Anglo-Norman drover (1353) is itself taken from English, and surnames such as “Galfridus le Drouere” occur in the late 13th century.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who drives cattle, sheep or other livestock, especially to market and often a long way: 1384, in a document printed in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research.^[2] Etymonline dates the common noun to the early 15th century and the surname to the late 13th,^[3] Dictionary.com the word to 1350–1400, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 15th century.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

A drover could also be a dealer in livestock.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defines him as "one that fats oxen for sale, and drives them to market", with Shakespeare's "like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks".^[8] That dealing side gave a short-lived figurative use, a trafficker or pedlar, from 1585 to 1602.^[2] From 1584 the word also named a boat fishing with a drift net, a use found in Spenser and later kept in Cornwall.^[2][9][10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds a more specific sense, someone in charge of taking many cattle to market by rail.^[6]

Timeline

• 1384 – a person who drives livestock, especially to market; a dealer in livestock.^[2]
• 1584 – a boat used for fishing with a drift net, later in Cornwall.^[2][4]
• 1585 – figuratively, a dealer in goods, a trafficker (obsolete by 1602).^[2]
• 1756 – apparently a slow coasting vessel, in Browne's history of Jamaica (rare, obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who drives cattle or sheep to pasture or to market, usually over long distances: The drover rested his herd by the creek.^[6][2][11]
2. A dealer in livestock.^[2][4]
3. (archaic) A boat used for fishing with a drift net; a drifter.^[6][2][4][9]

Related words

• drove
• drive

Usage notes

Australian English has the colloquial phrases drover's dog, someone who earns no respect,^[12] and drover's breakfast, nothing to eat at all, recorded in 1990.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
11. ^ The Macquarie Dictionary (2013), 6th ed., Sydney: Macquarie Dictionary Publishers
12. ^ Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com