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Scrounge vs Forage - What's the difference?

scrounge | forage |

As verbs the difference between scrounge and forage

is that scrounge is to hunt about, especially for something of nominal value; to scavenge or glean while forage is to search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

As nouns the difference between scrounge and forage

is that scrounge is someone who scrounges; a scrounger while forage is fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

scrounge

English

Verb

(en-verb)
  • To hunt about, especially for something of nominal value; to scavenge or glean.
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
    • Now you don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging your next meal.
  • To obtain something of moderate or inconsequential value from another.
    • As long as he's got someone who'll let him scrounge off them, he'll never settle down and get a full-time job.

    Synonyms

    * (obtain from another) blag, cadge (UK), leech, sponge, wheedle

    Derived terms

    * scrounger

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who scrounges; a scrounger.

    • See also

    * scringe * scrooge * scrouge * scrunge

    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