Adjacent Words

foray definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a sudden short attack [syn: foray, raid, maraud]
2: an initial attempt (especially outside your usual areas of competence); "scientists' forays into politics" v
1: steal goods; take as spoils; "During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners" [syn: plunder, despoil, loot, reave, strip, rifle, ransack, pillage, foray]
2: briefly enter enemy territory

Merriam Webster's

I. verb Etymology: Middle English forrayen, from Anglo-French forreyer, foreer, probably back-formation from *forrier, *forreour forager, raider, from fuerre, foer provender — more at forage Date: 14th century transitive verb archaic to ravage in search of spoils ; pillage intransitive verb to make a raid or brief invasion <forayed into enemy territory> • forayer noun II. noun Date: 14th century 1. a sudden or irregular invasion or attack for war or spoils ; raid 2. a brief excursion or attempt especially outside one's accustomed sphere <the novelist's foray into nonfiction>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. a sudden attack; a raid or incursion. --v.intr. make or go on a foray. Etymology: ME, prob. earlier as verb: back-form. f. forayer f. OF forrier forager, rel. to FODDER

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Foray For"ay (?; 277), n. [Another form of forahe. Cf. Forray.] A sudden or irregular incursion in border warfare; hence, any irregular incursion for war or spoils; a raid. --Spenser. The huge Earl Doorm, . . . Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey. --Tennyson.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Foray For"ay, v. t. To pillage; to ravage. He might foray our lands. --Sir W. Scott.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(forays) 1. If you make a foray into a new or unfamiliar type of activity, you start to become involved in it. Emporio Armani, the Italian fashion house, has made a discreet foray into furnishings. ...her first forays into politics. N-COUNT: oft poss N, usu N into n 2. You can refer to a short journey that you make as a foray if it seems to involve excitement or risk, for example because it is to an unfamiliar place or because you are looking for a particular thing. Most guests make at least one foray into the town... N-COUNT: usu N into/to n 3. If a group of soldiers make a foray into enemy territory, they make a quick attack there, and then return to their own territory. These base camps were used by the PKK guerrillas to make forays into Turkey. = raid N-COUNT: oft N into n

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

for'-a (2Sa 3:22).

See WAR.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Inroad, irruption, raid, piratical invasion, hostile incursion, predatory incursion.

Moby Thesaurus

air attack, air raid, air strike, banditry, board, boarding, brigandage, brigandism, depredate, depredation, despoil, despoiling, despoilment, despoliation, direption, escalade, fire raid, fleece, forage, foraging, freeboot, freebooting, gut, harass, harry, incursion, inroad, inundate, invade, invasion, irruption, loot, looting, make a raid, make an inroad, maraud, marauding, overrun, overswarm, overwhelm, pillage, pillaging, plunder, plundering, prey on, raid, raiding, ransack, ransacking, rape, rapine, ravage, ravagement, ravaging, raven, ravish, ravishment, razzia, reive, reiving, rifle, rifling, sack, sacking, saturation raid, scale, scale the walls, scaling, shuttle raid, spoil, spoiling, spoliate, spoliation, storm, sweep, take by storm