herd
Noun:
- A group of animals: A number of animals, especially large mammals like cattle, sheep, elephants, or whales, that live, feed, or travel together.
- A large group of people: Often used to describe a crowd of people, sometimes with a negative connotation implying they are ordinary, undistinguished, or act without independent thought.
Verb:
- To gather and move animals: To make a group of animals move together in a particular direction.
- To gather and move people: To cause people to move or gather into a group, often in a controlled or forceful way.
Noun:
- A herd of elephants crossed the plain.
- He didn't want to follow the common herd and chose his own path.
Verb:
- The cowboys will herd the cattle to the new pasture.
- The teacher herded the students onto the bus for the field trip.
"The herd instinct": A natural tendency to behave or think like the majority of people in a group.
- During the sale, the herd instinct took over, and everyone rushed to the same counter.
"To ride herd on": To keep watch or control over a group of people or a situation.
- The manager had to ride herd on the new project to ensure it stayed on schedule.
Herder (n): A person who looks after or drives a herd of animals.
- The herder guided the sheep through the mountain pass.
Herdsman (n): Another word for a herder; a person who tends a herd.
- Herd behavior (n): The behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction.
- Noun (for animals): Flock, drove, pack.
- Noun (for people): Crowd, mass, multitude, throng.
- Verb: Drive, round up, corral, muster.
Herd together: To gather into a group.
- The sheep herded together for warmth during the storm.
- People herded together under the awning to escape the rain.
Herd in/into: To move or guide a group into a confined space.
- The guards herded the prisoners into the courtyard.
"Separate the sheep from the goats" / "Sort out the sheep from the goats": To distinguish good people or things from bad ones, or superior from inferior. (This idiom relates to the action of herding and sorting animals.)
- The difficult exam will separate the sheep from the goats.
"Like herding cats": Used to describe the near-impossible task of trying to control or organize a group of people who are very independent and unruly.
- Getting all the volunteers to follow the same plan was like herding cats.
- a crowd especially of ordinary or undistinguished persons or things
- his brilliance raised him above the ruck
- the children resembled a fairy herd
- a group of wild mammals of one species that remain together: antelope or elephants or seals or whales or zebra
- a group of cattle or sheep or other domestic mammals all of the same kind that are herded by humans
- keep, move, or drive animals
- Who will be herding the cattle when the cowboy dies?
- move together, like a herd
- cause to herd, drive, or crowd together
- We herded the children into a spare classroom