Meaning

noun bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle

noun the act of searching for food and provisions

verb collect or look around for (food)

originFrom Middle English forage, from Old French fourage, forage, a derivative of fuerre (“fodder, straw”), from Frankish *fōdar (“fodder, sheath”), from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (“fodder, feed, sheath”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, to feed”). Cognate with Old High German fuotar (German Futter (“fodder, feed”)), Old English fōdor, fōþer (“food, fodder, covering, case,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0