Forms: α. 4–7 forager(e, 5–6 fourrager, (6 forageour, forragiour, foriger), 6–7 forrager, 6– forager. β. 6 foranger, -enger, -inger. [ad. OF. forragier, f. forrage FORAGE sb.; also a. OF. fourrageour, agent-n. f. fourragier FORAGE v. With the β. forms cf. messenger, passenger.]
† 1. A harbinger, messenger. Obs. Cf. FORAYER 2.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XX. 84. Frenesyes, and foule yueles · forageres of kynde.
1616. J. Lane, Cont. Sqr’s. T. (1888), 122, note.
| Much praisinge love (of peace the harbinger), | |
| mild truithes, sterne iustices kind foragere. |
2. One of a party sent out to gather forage, etc., for an army. † Also a spoiler, ravager.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of A., I. xiv. 36. Not trust onely vpon that that his fourragers shall bringe by cause oftymes they fynde nought to take.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xxxiii. 39 b/2. If the Spanish forangers were stronger, than they wold take theyr forag fro them.
1552. Huloet, Forager or waster of a countrey, populator.
1581. Styward, Mart. Discipl., I. 15–6. Hee must appoint a sufficient number of horse to attend vpon the forage maister, to gard and defend the foringers which must not returne out of the field til the forering maister with the rest be returned to the camp.
1624. Heywood, Gunaik., IV. 173–4. Certaine forragers and robbers that made sundrie incursions into the countrie.
1799. Wellington, 7 April, in Gurw., Desp., I. 27. The foragers are coming in fast, well loaded with forage, and I have therefore ordered the battalion to stay where it is, ready to turn out.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., X. XXI. vi. 119. The Austrians, on their side, were equally stagnant; and, except the continual skirmishing with the Prussian foragers, undertook nothing. ‘Shamefully ill-done our foraging, too,’ exclaims Schmettau again and again: ‘Had we done it with neatness, with regularity, the Country would have lasted us twice as long. Doing it headlong, wastefully and by the rule-of-thumb, the Country was a desert, all its inhabitants fled, all its edibles consumed, before six weeks were over.’
b. A foraging ant (Eciton).
[1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, II. 47. They [ants] keep a party of foragers constantly on the look-out.]
1863. Bates, Nat. Amazon, II. v. 352. One of the foragers, Eciton rapax, the giant of its genus, whose worker-majors are half-an-inch in length, hunts in single file through the forest.
3. One who goes foraging for himself. Also fig.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., II. (1626), 34.
| Oft she (the Wood’s wild foragers espy’d) | |
| Forgetting what she was, her selfe would hide. |
1742. Young, Nt. Th., v. 252.
| This bookcase, with dark booty almost burst, | |
| This forager on others wisdom, leaves | |
| Her native farm, her reason, quite untill’d. |
1777. Mason, Eng. Garden, II. 277.
| Down so smooth a slope | |
| The fleecy foragers will gladly browse. |
1890. H. S. Babcock, Chickens for Use and Beauty, in Century Mag., XL. May, 48/1. A nervous restless disposition, which makes them [poultry], when at liberty, excellent foragers, and thus economical to keep.
4. = forage-cap.
1891. Daily News, 14 Feb., 3/6. It is expected that the new folding cap … will be shortly condemned in favour of the all-round forager, which it was intended to supersede.
