herd.
A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
Meaning & usage
A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
a herd of cattle
a herd of sheep
Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company.
A crowd, a mass of people or things; a rabble.
I was never one to follow the herd.
A collection of things, especially vehicles.
Herds of buses spread across the streets.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herde, heerde, heorde, from Old English hierd, heord (“herd, flock; keeping, care, custody”), from Proto-West Germanic *herdu, from Proto-Germanic *herdō (“herd”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerdʰ- (“file, row, herd”). Cognate with German Herde, Danish hjord, Swedish hjord. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe (“nest”) and Serbo-Croatian krdo.
To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
Sheep herd on many hills.
To unite or associate in a herd
To manage, care for or guard a herd
He is employed to herd the goats.
To associate; to ally oneself with, or place oneself among, a group or company.
To move, or be moved, in a group. (of both animals and people)
On alighting at the station, we were all herded over the footbridge and through a side exit.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herde, heerde, heorde, from Old English hierd, heord (“herd, flock; keeping, care, custody”), from Proto-West Germanic *herdu, from Proto-Germanic *herdō (“herd”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerdʰ- (“file, row, herd”). Cognate with German Herde, Danish hjord, Swedish hjord. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe (“nest”) and Serbo-Croatian krdo.
Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herde, from Old English hirde, hierde, from Proto-West Germanic *hirdī, from Proto-Germanic *hirdijaz. Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.
To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
To form or put into a herd.
To move or drive a herd.
I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herde, from Old English hirde, hierde, from Proto-West Germanic *hirdī, from Proto-Germanic *hirdijaz. Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.