Word
drove
US/ˈdɹoʊv/
UK/dɹˈəʊv/
Definitions
03cattle path
n. an old road or track used for moving farm animals.
n. a traditional route or track specifically used for driving livestock to market.
“The old drove road is now a popular path for hikers.”
“The ancient drove remains visible as a deep depression in the landscape, carved by centuries of cattle movement toward the southern markets.”
British English
04to move livestock
v. to move a group of animals from one place to another.
v. to herd or conduct livestock over a distance, typically to market or new pastures.
“In the past, men drove cattle across the mountains for weeks.”
“The local farmers would traditionally drove their sheep to the higher plateaus during the summer months to exploit the seasonal grazing.”
Archaic
Real-World Examples
“In 1997, Green drove the jet-powered ThrustSSC across Nevada's Black Rock Desert at 763mph (1,228km/h), making him the first, and still the only person, to break the sound barrier on land.” “She and her partner drove their campervan to a wild camping spot by a lake near where they live in Carmarthenshire, Wales.” “People headed to beaches, parks and hills in their droves to catch the rare event.” Etymology
From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.
From earlier drave, from Middle English drave, draf, from Old English drāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite of drīfan (“to drive”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/drove