What does forage mean?
Word: Forage
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Forage means to search for food, as animals do in the wild. As a noun, it means food for horses and cattle.
Synonyms: search
How do you spell forage?
Syllables: for - age
Tricky part: The ending sounds like idge, but it is spelt age. The word porridge leads many students astray here.
Watch out for: foridge, forige
Memory tip: Goats forage for cabbage. Both words end with the same three letters.
Forage in a sentence
Example 1: Monkeys forage for fruit along the edge of the forest.
Example 2: Every morning the hens forage in the yard behind our house.
Example 3: The farmer stored forage in the barn for his cows.
Fun Fact
Forage and fodder are related. Both go back to an old Germanic word for food given to farm animals, and forage came into English through French.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell Spies
Choose the incorrectly spelt word:
a) porridge
b) forrage
c) voyage
d) storage
Show answer
b) forrage. Unlike porridge, this word gets by with one r.
Word Champ
Choose the correct word for the blank:
In winter, hungry deer wander through the snowy forest to ___ for moss and bark.
a) perch
b) mingle
c) hover
d) forage
Show answer
d) forage. Animals looking for moss and bark to eat are doing this; the other verbs are not about finding food.
Sound Check
In which word is 'age' pronounced differently?
a) village
b) cottage
c) engage
d) forage
Show answer
c) engage. Engage ends with a long sound, as in page; the other three end in a short ij sound.
Jumble Tumble
Choose the correct sequence of the jumbled letters to form a meaningful word:
erfgoa 123456
a) 325641
b) 352614
c) 352641
d) 532641
Show answer
c) 352641. Taken in this digit order, the letters spell the word for searching out a meal.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A person is foraging in which of these scenes?
a) picking wild berries on a hill walk
b) selling mangoes at a roadside stall
c) planting tomatoes in a window box
d) buying fresh fruit at the market
Show answer
a) picking wild berries on a hill walk
2. Why do many animals forage more in the weeks before winter?
a) to store up food
b) to rest their legs
c) to clean their fur
d) to find new friends
Show answer
a) to store up food
