herd
pronunciation
How to pronounce herd in British English:
UK [hɜːd]
How to pronounce herd in American English:
US [hɜːrd]
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- Noun:
- a group of cattle or sheep or other domestic mammals all of the same kind that are herded by humans
- a group of wild animals of one species that remain together: antelope or elephants or seals or whales or zebra
- a crowd especially of ordinary or undistinguished persons or things
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- Verb:
- cause to herd, drive, or crowd together
- move together, like a herd
- keep, move, or drive animals
Word Origin
- herd
- herd: [OE] Herd is part of a widespread Indo- European family of words denoting ‘group’ (others include Sanskrit çárdhas ‘troop, multitude’ and Welsh cordd ‘tribe, family’). It goes back to an Indo-European *kherdhā-, whose Germanic descendant *kherthō produced German herde, Swedish and Danish hjord, and English herd. Herd ‘herdsman’, now found only in compounds such as shepherd and goatherd, is a different word, albeit derived from the same Germanic source. Its Germanic relatives are German hirte, Swedish herde, and Danish hyrde.
- herd (n.)
- Old English heord "herd, flock," from Proto-Germanic *herdo- (cognates: Old Norse hjorð, Old High German herta, German Herde, Gothic hairda "herd"), from PIE *kerdh- "a row, group, herd" (cognates: Sanskrit śárdhah "herd, troop," Old Church Slavonic čreda "herd," Greek korthys "heap," Lithuanian kerdžius "shepherd"). Herd instinct in psychology is first recorded 1908.
- herd (v.)
- mid-13c., âto watch over or herd (livestock);â of animals, âto gather in a herd, to form a flock,â late 14c., from herd (n.). Related: Herded; herding.
Example
- 1. The contaminated water forced the family to sell its herd of 60 dairy cows and take jobs off the farm .
- 2. Herd infections were already reported in canada , australia , argentina , ireland , britain and norway .
- 3. In fact , the pkmzeta molecules appeared to herd themselves , like army rangers occupying a small peninsula , into precisely the fingerlike connections among brain cells that were strengthened .
- 4. His mind is in the herd stage , and he is as grossly material in his politics as freud in his psychology .
- 5. Half of the cows in the national dairy herd are raised in intensive confinement , where they suffer emotionally from being socially deprived and being prohibited from natural behavior .