drove1
/drəʊv
/ Past of drive.
Rhymes
drove2
/drəʊv/noun
1A herd or flock of animals being driven in a body: a drove of cattle...
- He was amazed at the ‘prodigious number’ of turkeys and geese driven up to London in vast droves of 1,000 or 2,000 birds.
- These ‘sunbirds’ are returning in their droves following the winter migration.
- Droves of cattle are, however, apt to be troublesome to the owners and tenants of the grounds through or near which they pass.
Synonyms
herd, flock, pack, fold
1.1A large number of people or things doing or undergoing the same thing: tourists have stayed away in droves this summer...
- It seems similarly unwise to assume that the army will defect in droves or that the population will rise to welcome the invaders, especially if they have no idea of what might follow an invasion.
- They swarm in droves, pouring out of cars and vans with a mission to drive away with a fabulous treasure, for which they paid as little as possible.
- The song was featured in the title sequence of the movie Blackboard Jungle, which had youngsters swarming cinema halls in droves.
Synonyms
crowd, swarm, horde, multitude, mob, throng, host, mass, army;
collection, gathering, assembly, company;
rabble, herd, crush, press, stream, sea
verb [with object] historical
Drive (livestock, especially cattle) to market: these three men discovered the coal on the Dulkaninna Creek while droving cattle...
- Another early visitor was Nathaniel Buchanan while droving cattle from Queensland to Glencoe Station.
- Memories of dust, droving, campfires and wide-open stretches of bushland came flooding back for Alf McCarley last month.
- The diary of James Higginson indicates that only about 1 per cent of his family's trips involved droving.
Derivatives
drover
/ noun ...- Aborigines who worked as drovers and stockmen on cattle stations were largely ignored until the appearance of works such as Ann McGrath's Born in the Cattle.
- Once the buyers, predominantly English farmers, had bought their herds the common practice was to hire some local drovers to drive the cattle south into England.
- He listened to bush mothers and stockmen, drovers and graziers, troops going into and returning from battle, committees, councils, prime ministers, popes and royalty.
Origin
Old English drāf, related to drīfan 'to drive'.