foragenoun/ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/

• 1

  Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

  • The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger.
  • To invade the corn, and to their cells convey / The plundered forage of their yellow prey
• 2

  An act or instance of foraging.

  • He [the lion] from forage will incline to play.
  • [Charles] Mawhood completed his forage unmolested, and returned to Philadelphia.
• 3

  obsoleteThe demand for fodder, etc., by an army from the local population.

forageverb/ˈfɒɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/

• 1

  To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

  • The message said that the party intended to hunt and forage through this region, for a month or two, afore it went back into the Canadas.
• 2

  To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.

  • And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, / Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, / Making defeat on the full power of France, / Whiles his most mighty father on a hill / Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp / Forage in blood of French nobility.
• 3

  To rummage.

  • Using the blankets for a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going on hands and knees, began to forage underneath the bed.
• 4

  Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.