herd
Pronunciation Noun

herd (plural herds)

  1. A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper. [from 11th c.]
    • 1768, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,
      The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.
  2. Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company. [from 13th c.]
    • 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.
  3. (now, usually, pejorative) A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble. [from 15th c.]
    • 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.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

herd (herds, present participle herding; past and past participle herded)

  1. (intransitive) To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
    Sheep herd on many hills.
  2. (transitive) To unite or associate in a herd
    He is employed to herd the goats.
  3. (intransitive) To associate; to ally oneself with, or place oneself among, a group or company.
    I’ll herd among his friends, and seem
    One of the number.
    Addison.
Translations Translations
  • Italian: unirsi
  • Portuguese: arrebanhar-se
Noun

herd (plural herds)

  1. (now, rare) Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
    • 2000, Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury 2002, page 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.
Related terms Translations Verb

herd (herds, present participle herding; past and past participle herded)

  1. (intransitive, Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
  2. (transitive) To form or put into a herd.
    I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.
Translations
  • Italian: imbrancare
  • Portuguese: pastorear
  • Russian: пасти
Translations


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