forage
/ˈfɒrɪdʒ
/verb [no object]
1(Of a person or animal) search widely for food or provisions: the birds forage for aquatic invertebrates, insects, and seeds...
- When chimps forage for food they do not ask themselves why, or consider better alternatives any more than does a beaver consider better ways of building dams.
- He would forage for food in the morning and hope that tomorrow was the day his luck changed.
- Until the first batch of workers hatches, the queen must forage for all the food herself, and this two - to three-week period is when she is vulnerable to being trapped.
1.1 [with object] Obtain (food or provisions) by searching: a girl foraging grass for oxen...
- The true usefulness of the pig lies in its ability to forage anything from household waste to grass, and thrive.
- These data, and others, have led to the concept that plants actively forage resources from their environment using assessment mechanisms similar to those of animals.
1.2 [with object] Search (a place) so as to obtain food: units that were foraging a particular area...
- So, he came to live in that place, and none knew how he lived or gained his sustenance, other than from his foraging the countryside for bottles and other redeemable scrap.
- For both human and animal there are cues in the environment that help us judge whether to continue foraging in the same location or to forage elsewhere.
- I now spend most nights foraging the refrigerator and the cupboards for ingredients to concoct something he would like.
Synonyms
hunt, hunt around, search, look about/around/round, cast about/around/round, rummage (about/around/round), ferret (about/around), root about/around, scratch about/around, nose around/about/round, scour, look high and low;
seek, look, explore
informal scrounge around
British informal rootle around
New Zealand informal poozle
1.3 [with object] archaic Supply with food.
noun
1 [mass noun] Food such as grass or hay for horses and cattle; fodder.It may provide enough forage to delay turning cattle into spring pastures with limited growth that could be rapidly over grazed....
- It provides early spring forage not only for cattle and sheep, but for wild ruminants as well, including deer, bison, elk, and moose.
- Lack of precipitation resulted in a severe decrease in availability of mixed grass forage, resulting in animal BW loss.
Synonyms
fodder, feed, food, foodstuff, herbage, pasturage;
silage, hay, straw
formal comestibles, provender
2 [in singular] A wide search over an area in order to obtain something, especially food or provisions.If only the director trusted her audience, this could've been a sublime forage into the netherworld of the human psyche....
- A desperate forage in the log pile to feed the wood-burner can wreck a grass snake's winter and even an innocent trip to the cellar for a bottle of wine may prove fatal to a hibernating bat.
- Kuala Lumpar offers lots to do: a visit to the world's tallest building, a forage in the famous night market or a trip to the Hindu temples at the Batu Caves.
Synonyms
scavenge, hunt, search, look, exploration, quest, scout, probe
Derivatives
forager
/ noun ...- A hive entrance was blocked for 1 min, and four returning foragers were collected in individual plastic vials.
- At about 3 weeks of age workers leave the hive as foragers who gather pollen and nectar and are exposed to a more variable environment.
- It is relatively easy to imagine that information about food will be available when foragers gather in groups to rest.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French fourrage (noun), fourrager (verb), from fuerre 'straw', of Germanic origin and related to fodder.