herd

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /hɜːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hɝd/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)d
• Homophone: heard

From Middle English herde, heerde, heorde, from Old English hierd, heord (“herd, flock; keeping, care, custody”), from Proto-Germanic *herdō (“herd”), from Proto-Indo-European *kerdʰ- (“file, row, herd”). Cognate with German Herde, Swedish hjord. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe (“nest”) and Serbo-Croatian krdo.

herd (plural herds)

1. A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper. [from 11th c.]
   • 1768, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,

     The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.

2. Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company. [from 13th c.]
   • 2007, J. Michael Fay, Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma, National Geographic (March 2007), 47,

     Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd.

3. (now usually derogatory) A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble. [from 15th c.]
   • Dryden

     But far more numerous was the herd of such / Who think too little and who talk too much.

   • Coleridge

     You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

herd (third-person singular simple present herds, present participle herding, simple past and past participle herded)

1. (intransitive) To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.

   Sheep herd on many hills.

   • 1953, Janice Holt Giles, The Kentuckians

     The women bunched up in little droves and let their tongues clack, and the men herded together and passed a jug around and, to tell the truth, let their tongues clack too.

   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 167:

     Any predator that preys on animals that herd or school, has to be able to single out one individual to attack.

2. (transitive) To unite or associate in a herd

   He is employed to herd the goats.

3. (intransitive) To associate; to ally oneself with, or place oneself among, a group or company.

   (Can we date this quote?) I’ll herd among his friends, and seem
   One of the number. Addison.

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

herd (plural herds)

1. (now rare) Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
   • 2000, Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury 2002, page 38:

     Any talent which gives a good new thing to others is a miracle, but commentators have thought it extra miraculous that England's first known poet was an illiterate herd.

herd (third-person singular simple present herds, present participle herding, simple past and past participle herded)

1. (intransitive, Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
2. (transitive) To form or put into a herd.

   I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.

• Appendix:English collective nouns
• drove
• gather
• muster
• round up
• ride herd on

herd

1. imperative of herde

From Proto-Germanic *herþaz, whence also Old Saxon herth, Old Frisian herth, hirth, Old English heorþ. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kerh₃- (“heat, fire”).

herd m

1. hearth

• Middle High German: hert
  • German: Herd
  • Luxembourgish: Häerd