Herd vs Hird - What's the difference?
herd | hird |
A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
* 1768, ,
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,
A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble.
* Dryden
* Coleridge
To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.
Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
* 2000 , Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces , Bloomsbury 2002, p. 38:
(Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
To form or put into a herd.
(historical) In Norwegian history, an informal retinue of personal armed companions, hirdmen or housecarls.
By extension, the formal royal court household.
As nouns the difference between herd and hird
is that herd is a number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper while hird is in Norwegian history, an informal retinue of personal armed companions, hirdmen or housecarls.As a verb herd
is to unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.herd
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) herde, heerde, heorde, from (etyl) hierd, .Noun
(en noun)- The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.
- Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd .
- But far more numerous was the herd of such / Who think too little and who talk too much.
- You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.
Verb
(en verb)- Sheep herd on many hills.
- (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)- 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 * vaxherdVerb
(en verb)- I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.