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Graze vs Herd - What's the difference?

graze | herd |

In transitive terms the difference between graze and herd

is that graze is to cause a slight wound to; to scratch while herd is to form or put into a herd.

In intransitive terms the difference between graze and herd

is that graze is to yield grass for grazing while herd is to associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.

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

    * ----

    herd

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) herde, heerde, heorde, from (etyl) hierd, .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
  • * 1768, ,
  • The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.
  • Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company.
  • * 2007, J. Michael Fay, Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma , National Geographic (March 2007), 47,
  • Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd .
  • A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble.
  • * Dryden
  • But far more numerous was the herd of such / Who think too little and who talk too much.
  • * Coleridge
  • You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
  • Sheep herd on many hills.
  • To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.
  • (rfdate) I’ll herd among his friends, and seem One of the number. Addison.

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) hirde, (hierde), from (etyl) . Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
  • * 2000 , Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces , Bloomsbury 2002, p. 38:
  • Any talent which gives a good new thing to others is a miracle, but commentators have thought it extra miraculous that England's first known poet was an illiterate herd .
    Derived terms
    * bearherd * cowherd * goatherd * gooseherd * hogherd * horseherd * neatherd * oxherd * swanherd * swineherd * vaxherd

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
  • To form or put into a herd.
  • I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.

    See also

    * * drove * gather * muster * round up * ride herd on English collective nouns ----