Graze Means Both to Feed and to Scrape
To graze is to eat grass, or to scrape a surface lightly. The two senses are related through the idea of brushing along.
To graze is to feed on growing grass, or to scrape something lightly in passing. The feeding sense comes straight from *grass*; the scraping sense is probably the same word extended, since an animal grazing brushes its mouth along the surface of the ground. A bullet that grazes you touches and moves on, exactly as a sheep's mouth does. In modern nutrition, *grazing* means eating small amounts throughout the day.
- To eat grass. *Cattle grazing.*
- To scrape lightly. *The bullet grazed his arm.*
- A minor scrape. *A grazed knee.*
- To snack all day. *Grazing rather than meals.*
- Grazing — pasture land. *Common grazing.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | graze | Sheep graze. |
| Past | grazed | It grazed him. |
| Noun | graze | A nasty graze. |
| Noun | grazing | Rough grazing. |
| Old English | grasian | To feed on grass. |
- Cattle grazed on the hillside.Feeding.
- She grazed her knee falling.Injury.
- The stone grazed the paintwork.Scraping.
Grazing systems in farming
- Continuous grazing — animals stay on one pasture
- Rotational grazing — moved between paddocks to let grass recover
- Common grazing — land shared between several holdings
- Overgrazing — feeding faster than the grass regrows
- Set stocking — a fixed number of animals per hectare
Old English *grasian*, to feed on grass, from *græs*, grass. The scraping sense is recorded from the 1600s.
Are the two senses of graze related?
Probably. Both involve brushing lightly along a surface, whether with a mouth or an object in passing.
What is rotational grazing?
Moving livestock between fenced paddocks so each area of grass has time to recover before being eaten again.