forage Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle
    eatage; pasturage; grass; pasture.
  2. noun the act of searching for food and provisions
    foraging.
  3. verb collect or look around for (food)
    scrounge.
  4. verb wander and feed
    • The animals forage in the woods

WordNet

For"age noun
Etymology
OF. fourage, F. fourrage, fr. forre, fuerre, fodder, straw, F. feurre, fr. LL. foderum, fodrum, of German or Scand, origin; cf. OHG. fuotar, G. futter. See Fodder food, and cf. Foray.
Definitions
  1. The act of foraging; search for provisions, etc.
    He [the lion] from forage will incline to play. Shak.
    One way a band select from forage drives A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine. Milton.
    Mawhood completed his forage unmolested. Marshall.
  2. Food of any kind for animals, especially for horses and cattle, as grass, pasture, hay, corn, oats. Dryden.
For"age intransitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Foraged ; present participle & verbal noun Foraging
Definitions
  1. To wander or rove in search of food; to collect food, esp. forage, for horses and cattle by feeding on or stripping the country; to ravage; to feed on spoil.
    His most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. Shak.
For"age transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To strip of provisions; to supply with forage; as, to forage steeds. Pope.

Webster 1913