Graze vs Grazier - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between graze and grazier

is that graze is the act of grazing; a scratching or injuring lightly on passing while grazier is (uk|historical) one who grazes cattle and/or sheep on a rural property.

As a verb graze

is to feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc) with grass; to furnish pasture for.

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

* ----

grazier

English

Noun

(en noun)

(UK, historical) One who grazes cattle and/or sheep on a rural property.

Graziers on the tablelands are in dire straits because they do not have enough winter feed and will have to keep reducing stock.

(Australia) The owner of a large property on which sheep or cattle graze.

* 1963 , Colin Clark, Australian Hopes and Fears , page 75,

As a result of these causes the grazier' marks himself off fairly sharply from the rest of Australia. He has always spent a considerable proportion of the time in the capital cities, in each of which he has formed a club to which, besides the ' graziers , only a few of the wealthiest and most prominent of the city dwellers are admitted.

* 1996 , , Virago Press, paperback edition, page 44

They have been here, the bora rings, for over twenty thousand years, it is believed; it is only in the past hundred, a hiccup in time, that indifferent graziers and the treads of their four-wheel drives have scattered the stones and have imprinted zippered cars across their sacred clay skin.

* 2000 , Bill Pritchard, Phil McManus, Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia , page 34,

The ‘grazier'’ image can be contrasted to that of the ‘cocky’. ' Graziers have tended to own large tracts of land, have inherited family wealth from the heady days of high wool prices, often reside in stately homes, possess a good education, and have taken leadership roles in the industry.

Usage notes

In Britain, the term is no longer used, but has historical significance.