Graze
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -eɪz
Origin
From Old English grasian ("to feed on grass"), from græs ("grass").
Verb
- (transitive) To feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc.) with grass; to furnish pasture for.
- Jonathan Swifta 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 PopeThe lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead.
- 1993, John Montroll, Origami Inside-Out (page 41)The bird 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.
- (transitive) To tend (cattle, etc.) while grazing.
- Shakespearewhen Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep
- (transitive) To rub or touch lightly the surface of (a thing) in passing.the bullet grazed the wall
- 1851, Herman Melville, ,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.
- (transitive) To cause a slight wound to; to scratch.to graze one's knee
- (intransitive) To yield grass for grazing.
- Francis BaconThe 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.