Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A group of cattle or other domestic animals of a single kind kept together for a specific purpose.
  • noun A number of wild animals of one species that remain together as a group.
  • noun A large number of people; a crowd.
  • noun The multitude of common people regarded as a mass.
  • intransitive verb To come together in a herd.
  • intransitive verb To gather, keep, or drive (animals) in a herd.
  • intransitive verb To tend (sheep or cattle).
  • intransitive verb To gather and place into a group or mass.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An obsolete spelling of heard, preterit and past participle of hear.
  • noun A number of animals feeding or driven together; a drove; a flock: commonly used of the larger animals, such as cows, oxen, horses, asses (cattle), deer, camels, elephants, whales, etc., and sometimes of small cattle, as sheep, hogs, etc., and in falconry and fowling of birds, as swans, cranes, and curlews.
  • noun In a disparaging sense, a company of men or people; a rabble; a mob: as, the vulgar herd.
  • To take care of or tend, as cattle.
  • To act as a herd or shepherd; tend cattle or take care of a flock.
  • To go in a herd; congregate as beasts; feed or run in droves.
  • To associate; unite in troops or companies; become one of any faction, party, or set: used in a more or less derogatory or sinister sense.
  • To form into or as if into a herd.
  • An obsolete form of haired.
  • noun A herdsman; a keeper of cattle; a shepherd; hence, a keeper of any domestic animals: now rare in the simple form (except in Scotland), but common in composition, as in cowherd, goatherd, gooseherd, shepherd, swineherd.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
  • intransitive verb To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.
  • intransitive verb Scot. To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
  • noun One who herds or assembles domestic animals; a herdsman; -- much used in composition
  • noun A number of beasts assembled together; ; a particular stock or family of cattle.
  • noun A crowd of low people; a rabble.
  • noun (Bot.) one of several species of grass, highly esteemed for hay. See under Grass.
  • transitive verb To form or put into a herd.
  • adjective obsolete Haired.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
  • verb intransitive To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.
  • noun Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
  • verb intransitive, Scotland To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
  • verb transitive To form or put into a herd.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a crowd especially of ordinary or undistinguished persons or things
  • noun a group of wild mammals of one species that remain together: antelope or elephants or seals or whales or zebra
  • verb cause to herd, drive, or crowd together
  • verb keep, move, or drive animals
  • verb move together, like a herd
  • noun a group of cattle or sheep or other domestic mammals all of the same kind that are herded by humans

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English heord.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English heord, from Proto-Germanic *herdō, from Proto-Indo-European *kerdha. Cognate with German Herde, Swedish hjord. Non Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe, çerdhe ("bird nest, cradle, kindergarten").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

Comments

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  • He was hatless, wore no jacket; had no dog with him, no stick either, - which made him a queer kind of herd.

    - Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down

    August 28, 2008

  • Protecting, cautious, sheltered by one's own. A mass, together, uninviting, limiting yet comforting. Waiting to be led, wanting to be led, wanting to be watched over.

    May 2, 2010