forager
Americannoun
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a person or animal who goes out in search of food or provisions of any kind.
The ants you see are the foragers, out looking for food and water, and they represent only a very small number of the total colony.
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someone who collects or obtains things through hunting or searching about.
We meet the protagonist struggling to make ends meet as a scrap-metal forager in a remote community.
Etymology
Origin of forager
First recorded in 1350–1400, for an earlier sense; forag(e) ( def. ) + -er 1 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
On an off-day hike, Newton and a forager friend had to spring into action when a restaurant called with an order for five pounds of ramps to be delivered the next day.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 13, 2026
His career paths are hunter, forager or watchtower guard, but he seems more like the product of a progressive Montessori school, even with his dad urging him to cackle at shredded deer intestines.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2025
“It’s probably a lot more ubiquitous than we understood,” says co-author Bruce Winterhalder, a behavioral ecologist at UC Davis and pioneering scholar of forager theory.
From Science Magazine • May 12, 2024
“Once you’ve bit down on a fresh muscadine, juice and pulp bursting onto your tongue, table grapes will seem flavorless,” says Betsy Harris, a forager living in northern Florida.
From Salon • Apr. 2, 2024
The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
