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Graze vs Forage - What's the difference?

graze | forage |

As nouns the difference between graze and forage

is that graze is the act of grazing; a scratching or injuring lightly on passing while forage is fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

As verbs the difference between graze and forage

is that graze is to feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc.) with grass; to furnish pasture for while forage is to search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

graze

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of grazing; a scratching or injuring lightly on passing.
  • A light abrasion; a slight scratch.
  • Verb

    (graz)
  • To feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc.) with grass; to furnish pasture for.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • a field or two to graze his cows
  • * 1999:' Although it is perfectly good meadowland, none of the villagers has ever '''grazed animals on the meadow on the other side of the wall. — ''Stardust , Neil Gaiman, page 4 (2001 Perennial Edition).
  • (ambitransitive) To feed on; to eat (growing herbage); to eat grass from (a pasture); to browse.
  • Cattle graze in the meadows.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead.
  • * 1993 , John Montroll, Origami Inside-Out (page 41)
  • The bird [Canada goose] is more often found on land than other waterfowl because of its love for seeds and grains. The long neck is well adapted for grazing .
  • To tend (cattle, etc.) while grazing.
  • * Shakespeare
  • when Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep
  • To rub or touch lightly the surface of (a thing) in passing.
  • the bullet grazed the wall
  • * 1851 ,
  • But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through.
  • To cause a slight wound to; to scratch.
  • to graze one's knee
  • To yield grass for grazing.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • The sewers must be kept so as the water may not stay too long in the spring; for then the ground continueth the wet, whereby it will never graze to purpose that year.

    Derived terms

    * overgraze

    Anagrams

    * ----

    forage

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
  • * 1819 , :
  • “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.
    (Dryden)
  • An act or instance of foraging.
  • * Shakespeare
  • He [the lion] from forage will incline to play.
  • * Marshall
  • Mawhood completed his forage unmolested.
  • * 1860 September, “A Chapter on Rats”, in , volume 56, number 3, page 304:
  • ‘My dears,’ he discourses to them — how he licks his gums, long toothless, as he speaks of his forages into the well-stored cellars:
  • (obsolete) The demand for fodder etc by an army from the local population
  • Verb

    (forag)
  • To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.
  • * 1841 , , The Deerslayer , Chapter 8:
  • 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.
  • To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
  • * 1599 , , Henry V , Act 1, Scene 2:
  • 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.
  • To rummage.
  • * 1898 , , The Wrecker :
  • 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.

    Derived terms

    * forager