FromMiddle Englishdrove,drof,draf, fromOld Englishdrāf(“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), fromProto-Germanic*draibō(“a drive, push, movement, drove”), fromProto-Indo-European*dʰreybʰ-(“to drive, push”). Cognate withScotsdrave,dreef(“drove, crowd”),Dutchdreef(“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”),Middle High Germantreip(“a drove”),Swedishdrev(“a drive, drove”),Icelandicdreif(“a scattering, distribution”). More atdrive.
drove (pluraldroves)
- A cattledrive or theherd being driven by it; thus, anumber ofcattledriven tomarket or newpastures.
- (figuratively, by extension, usually in theplural) A large number of people on the move.
- indroves
- (collective) A group ofhares.
- Aroad ortrack along whichcattle arehabitually, used to be or could bedriven; adroveway.
- A narrowdrain orchannel used in theirrigation ofland.[1]
- A broadchisel used to bringstone to a nearlysmooth surface.
- The grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel.
number of cattle driven to market or new pastures
- Bulgarian:черда(čerda),стадо (bg)(stado)
- Dutch:kudde (nl)
- French:troupeau (fr) m,manade (fr) f,horde (fr) f
- German:Herde (de) f
- Italian:mandria (it) f,armento (it) m,branco (it) m
- Maori:whiunga
- Russian:гурт (ru) m(gurt),ста́до (ru) n(stádo)
- Serbo-Croatian:stado (sh) n
- Spanish:manada (es) f,tropa (es) f(Arg., Bol., Par. and Ur.),arreo (es) m,recua (es) f
- Turkish:sürü (tr)
- Ukrainian:табун m(tabun),стадо n(stado)
- Welsh:diadell f,gyr m,praidd m,haid f
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large number of people on the move
road or track along which cattle are habitually driven
—see alsodrovewaynarrow drain for irrigation
broad chisel for stoneworking
grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel
From earlierdrave, fromMiddle Englishdrave,draf, fromOld Englishdrāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite ofdrīfan(“to drive”).
drove
- simplepast ofdrive
1897 December (indicated as1898),Winston Churchill, chapter II, inThe Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company; London:Macmillan & Co., Ltd.,→OCLC:I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned anddrove out of town.
1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, inRailway Magazine, page157:Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, anddrove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.
- (dialectal)pastparticiple ofdrive
1706, Edward Ward,Hudibras redivivus,I.10:Not the Horn-Plague, but something worse, Haddrove the frighted Cucks from thence.
1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, inMemoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton andRalph Griffiths] […],→OCLC,pages165–166:Then, being on his knees between my thighs, he drew up his ſhirt, and bared all his hairy thighs, and ſtiff ſtaring truncheon, red-topt, and rooted into a thicket of curls, which cover’d his belly to his navel, and gave it the air of a fleſh-bruſh: and ſoon I felt it joining cloſe to mine, when he haddrove the nail up to the head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on both ſides.
2019 April 17, Ch Insp Lee, quotee,BBC News[1]:We are appealing to any individuals who "have"drove that road who may well have [...]
drove (third-person singular simple presentdroves,present participledroving,simple past and past participledroved)
- Toherdcattle; particularly over a long distance.
- Synonym:drive
1890, Banjo Paterson,The Man from Snowy River:He'sdroving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.
- (transitive) Tofinish (stone) with a drove chisel.
to herd cattle, to move cattle over a long distance
- ^1858, Peter Lund Simmonds,The Dictionary of Trade Products
drove
- Alternative form ofdrof
