HERD • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Herd

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noun

Herd n.

A number of beasts assembled together; as, a herd of horses, oxen, cattle, camels, elephants, deer, or swine; a particular stock or family of cattle. "The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea." Note: Herd is distinguished from flock, as being chiefly applied to the larger animals. A number of cattle, when driven to market, is called a drove.

A crowd of low people; a rabble. "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."

Herd's grass (Bot.), one of several species of grass, highly esteemed for hay. See under Grass.

Herd n. One who herds or assembles domestic animals; a herdsman; much used in composition; as, a shepherd; a goatherd, and the like.

verb

Herd v. t. To form or put into a herd.

Herd v. i. (past & past part. herded; pres. part. herding)

To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company; as, sheep herd on many hills.

To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company. "I'll herd among his friends, and seem One of the number."

To act as a herdsman or a shepherd. (Scot.)

adjective

Herd adj. Haired. (Obs.)

See images of 'Herd'

Etymology of 'Herd'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Herd" Quotes from Famous Books

... determined on slow and deliberate suicide are letting themselves down gently by a silken thread into the mouth of the spotted monarch, who has but to sail about and about, and pick them up one by one as they touch the stream?—A sight which makes one think—as does a herd of swine crunching acorns, each one of which might have become a 'builder oak'—how Nature is never more magnificent than in ...

— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to their faction. We should then single every criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear: On the contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy or defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard ...

— The Coverley Papers • Various

... so far removed from the vulgar herd that they forget that others ever stand in need of the bare necessaries of life. They are like the inhabitant of the African mountain, who gazing from the verdant table land, refreshed by the rills of melted snow, cannot comprehend that the dwellers in the plains below ...

— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... with England. They observed, that other dominions, electorates, and principalities in Germany, were secured by the constitutions of the empire, as well as by fair and equal alliances with their co-estates; whereas Hanover stood solitary, like a hunted deer avoided by the herd, and had no other shelter but that of shrinking under the extended shield of Great Britain: that the reluctance expressed by the German princes to undertake the defence of these dominions, flowed from a firm persuasion, founded on experience, that England would ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Hottentot; "it's well that he did not charge you; he would have tumbled you down the precipice, horse and all. There must be a herd here, and we had better stop as soon as we are down the ...

— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

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