forage

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English forage,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French forage, fourage, forrage,^[4][5][6][3] now fourrage,^[4][3] which meant fodder as well as foraging and pillaging.^[4][5] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from 1160–74 for straw and fodder.^[7] Anglo-Latin had Medieval Latin foragium and furragium by about 1273.^[5][2][4] The French word was formed with the suffix -age from fuerre (“hay, straw, fodder”), now feurre,^[4][3][8][9] from Frankish *fōdar (“fodder”),^[4][5][8] from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (“fodder, feed”).^[4][10] The Germanic word is also the source of fodder, and is related to food.^[3][5][6] The verb, from 1417, is from the noun or from fourrager.^[4][3][5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Food for horses and cattle, especially hay, straw or other dry fodder: about 1315, in the poems of Shoreham.^[3][2][5] Etymonline dates it to the early 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The noun first meant dry fodder, and the OED notes that it later came to mean chiefly the feed of an army's horses.^[3] Through French, where the word already covered both fodder and the plundering raids that soldiers made to get it,^[4][5] the idea of a roving search for provisions entered English: the noun in this sense is recorded from 1481, in Caxton,^[3][4] and the verb from 1417, at first "to overrun a country for supplies", that is, to plunder.^[3][4][5] Chaucer used the noun three times, for dry fodder.^[11] Shakespeare also used both words for ravenous feeding.^[3] The modern general sense, to hunt about for something, rummage, dates from 1768–74.^[4][3] Food that animals find for themselves is called forage from the late 17th century.^[8][12] In English dialects, from Scotland to Cornwall, forage or furridge meant to rummage or ransack a place, and also to pilfer.^[13] The forage cap, a soldier's undress cap, is attested by 1827.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1315 – fodder for horses and cattle.^[3][2]
• 1417 – verb: to overrun a country to obtain or destroy supplies.^[3][5]
• 1481 – a roving search for provisions; a raid.^[3][4]
• 1530 – verb: to rove in search of provisions, of soldiers.^[3]
• 1552 – verb: to supply with forage.^[3]
• 1593 – verb: to feed greedily (obsolete by 1698).^[3]
• 1630 – verb: to obtain by foraging.^[3]
• 1768 – verb: to hunt about, rummage.^[4][3]
• 1827 – forage cap.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Food for horses and cattle, such as hay, grain or straw; fodder.^[14][12][3]
2. Food that animals find for themselves by grazing or browsing.^[12][8]
3. A search for food or provisions: a forage through the empty houses.^[14][12][3]
4. (military) A raid or incursion to seize supplies.^[14][3]

Verb

1. To search widely for food or provisions: Deer forage in the orchard at night.^[14][12][3]
2. To search about; to rummage: He foraged in the drawer for a pen.^[14][12][3]
3. To obtain something by searching: They foraged mushrooms in the woods.^[14][12][3]
4. To collect supplies from a place, or to plunder it.^[14][12][3]
5. To supply animals with forage.^[14][12][3]

Word family

• forager
• unforaged
• forage cap

Related words

• foray
• fodder
• food
• feed

Usage notes

In bookbinding, Merriam-Webster records forage as a folk-etymological form of fore edge, as in forage painting.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ 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
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins