horde - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Recorded in English since 1555. From Middle French horde, from German Horde, from Polish horda, from Russian орда́ (ordá, “horde, clan, troop”), probably from Kipchak Turkic (compare Tatar урда (urda, “horde”)), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *ordu (“place of staying of the army, ruler etc.”). Cognates include Turkish ordu (“camp, army”), Mongolian орд (ord, “court, castle, royal compound, camp, horde”) and Kalmyk орда (orda). Doublet of orda and Urdu.

horde (plural hordes)

  1. A wandering troop or gang; especially, a clan or tribe of a nomadic people (originally Tatars) migrating from place to place for the sake of pasturage, plunder, etc.; a predatory multitude.
  2. A large number of people or things.
    We were beset by a horde of street vendors who thought we were tourists and would buy their cheap souvenirs.
    • 1907, Jack London, Before Adam, Chapter IV:
      It is true, the more progressive members of our horde lived in the caves above the river.
    • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 197:
      And so Tarzan of the Apes dropped lightly to the turf into the midst of the fierce and hideous horde—he had completed the cycle of evolution, and had returned to be once again a brute among brutes.

wandering troop or gang

a large number of people

horde (third-person singular simple present hordes, present participle hording or hordeing, simple past and past participle horded)

  1. (intransitive) To travel en masse; to flock.
    • 1824, T. E., Oriental Wanderings, or the Fortunes of Felix. A romance, page 69:
      "What wouldst thou insinuate?" replied Elmuton, sarcastically; “has he not been watched, and secretly discovered hordeing with Christians?

From German Horde.

horde c (singular definite horden, plural indefinite horder)

  1. horde

Borrowed from German Horde; attested from the early 17th century.

horde f (plural horden or hordes, diminutive hordetje n)

  1. a horde
  2. a troop of boy scouts, comprising no more than 24 cubs

From Middle Dutch horde, hurde, from Old Dutch *hurd, from Proto-West Germanic *hurdi, from Proto-Germanic *hurdiz; cognate with German Hürde, and closely related to English hurdle (which is a diminutive of the same root). The sense "hurdle" is a semantic loan from English hurdle.

horde f (plural horden, diminutive hordetje n)

  1. (sports) hurdle (obstacle used in races)
  2. a gross sieve
  3. any movable wattle screen or braided wooden lattice used for various purposes (as a wall, hurdle, shield, sieve or even raft)

horde f (plural hordes)

  1. a horde

horde nde (plural kore ɗe)

  1. (Pulaar, Adamawa) calabash

horde

  1. alternative form of hord

horde

  1. alternative form of horden

From German Horde.

horde m (definite singular horden, indefinite plural horder, definite plural hordene)

  1. a horde

horde

  1. dative singular of hord

horde

  1. inflection of hordy:
    1. neuter nominative/accusative singular
    2. nominative/accusative plural