drove

Etymology 1

From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic *draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“to support”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.

noun

1. A cattle drive or the herd being driven by it; thus, a number of cattle driven to market or new pastures.
2. (figurative, by extension, usually in the plural) A large number of people on the move (literally or figuratively).
   New editors are joining English Wikipedia in droves! 2009, Erik Zachte, (Please provide the book title or journal name), archived from the original on 2009-12-12
3. (collective) A group of hares.
4. A road or track along which cattle are habitually driven; a drove road.
5. A narrow drain or channel used in the irrigation of land.
6. A broad chisel used to bring stone to a nearly smooth surface.
7. The grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel.

Etymology 2

From earlier drave, from Middle English drave, draf, from Old English drāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite of drīfan (“to drive”).

verb

1. simple past of drive
   Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff. 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157

verb

1. To herd cattle; particularly over a long distance.
   He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh. 1890, Banjo Paterson, The Man from Snowy River
2. (transitive) To finish (stone) with a drove chisel.