Herd

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /həːd/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)d
• Homophones: heard

From Middle English herde, heerde, heorde, from Old English hierd, heord ("herd, flock; keeping, care, custody"), from Proto-Germanic *herdō ("herd"), from Proto-Indo-European *kerdʰ- ("file, row, herd"). Cognate with German Herde, Swedish hjord. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe, çerdhe ("bird nest, cradle, kindergarten").

Full definition of herd

Noun

1. A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper. from 11th c.
• 1768, Thomas Gray, ,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. A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble. from 15th c.
• DrydenBut far more numerous was the herd of such
  Who think too little and who talk too much.
• ColeridgeYou can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.Sheep herd on many hills.
2. (intransitive) To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.unknown date I’ll herd among his friends, and seem One of the number. Addison.

Old English hirde, hierde, from Proto-Germanic *hirdijaz. Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.

Noun

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

Derived terms

Related terms

Verb

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.