Other forms: foraging, forages, foraged
To forage is to search widely for food or supplies. Forage for mushrooms, foraged in the woods, forage parties.
Modern foraging is a hobby with a serious warning attached: some edible plants and fungi have deadly lookalikes, and identification must be certain rather than probable. In armies it meant living off the land. As a noun, forage is food for livestock. Note that the word comes from a Frankish word for fodder.
1verbforageTo search widely for food or supplies.
“Every autumn we forage for blackberries and mushrooms in the woods.”
2nounlivestockFood for livestock.
“The farmer stored enough forage in the barn to feed his cattle through the winter.”
forage is a searching for food.
Old French fourage comes from fuerre, fodder, from a Frankish word. Fodder and food come from the same feeding.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₂- — to protect, to feed
Proto-Germanic
*fōdrą — fodder, feed, sheath
Frankish
*fōdar — fodder, sheath
Old French
fourage
Middle English
forage
English, today
forage
Built from
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 forage, whose first element is ultimately from bʰerH- (“to pierce”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA