Verb

1. To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.

   1841 The message said that the party intended to hunt and forage through this region, for a month or two, afore it went back into the Canadas — James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer, Chapter 8.

2. To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.

   1599 And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,

   Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,

   Making defeat on the full power of France,

   Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

   Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp

   Forage in blood of French nobility. — Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1, Scene 2.

3. To rummage.

   1898 Using the blankets for a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going on hands and knees, began to forage underneath the bed. — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Wrecker.

Noun

1. Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.

   1819 The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger. — Walter Scott, Ivanhoe here

Adjective

1. Of or pertaining to forage or foraging.