forage

Meanings

1. Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
2. An act or instance of foraging.
3. The demand for fodder, etc., by an army from the local population.

1. To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.
2. To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
3. To rummage.
4. Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.

Etymology

From Middle English forage, from Old French fourage, forage, a derivative of fuerre (“fodder, straw”), from Frankish *fōdar (“fodder, sheath”), from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (“fodder, feed, sheath”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, to feed”). Cognate with Old High German fuotar (German Futter (“fodder, feed”)), Old English fōdor, fōþer (“food, fodder, covering, case, basket”), Dutch voeder (“forage, food, feed”), Danish foder (“fodder, feed”), Icelandic fóðr (“fodder, sheath”). More at fodder, food. Unrelated to modern French forage (“drilling”), whose first element is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to pierce”).