drove

Formsdroves, droving, droved

Pluraldroves

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of drive.

   Heavy rain drove the crowd indoors before noon.

   The committee drove the project to completion in record time.

   Note

   Standard English keeps two forms apart here: drove for the simple past (she drove home) and driven after have (she has driven home). The vowel goes back to Old English drāf, the past of drīfan, and an earlier spelling, drave, once stood beside it. By coincidence Old English drāf was also the word for a herd, so this verb form and the cattle noun have shared a spelling from the start.

2. 2
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A large number of people moving together from one place to another.

   A drove of commuters surged toward the platform when the doors opened.

   Tourists arrived in droves during the summer festival.

   Similarcrowd, horde, throng, swarm, flock

   Note

   Used of people, the word usually turns plural and settles into the phrase in droves: shoppers came in droves, and voters stayed away in droves. The singular, as in a drove of commuters, is possible but less usual. The figure is borrowed from the cattle drive, so it suits crowds that move or act together rather than people simply gathered in one place.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A herd of cattle being driven together over a distance, as to market or fresh pastures.

   The drove reached the railhead after weeks on the trail.

   Ranch hands sold the entire drove at the stockyards.

   Similarherd

   Note

   The oldest meaning, and the one the other nouns grow from. Old English drāf meant the act of driving, the herd driven, and even the road it took, which survives as the droveway. The noun looks exactly like the past tense of drive because both come from driving: drāf was also the Old English past form of drīfan. Context tells them apart. A drove is counted and sold, while 'drove the cattle' is a verb.

4. 4
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To drive a herd of cattle overland, especially on a long journey to distant pasture or market.

   Skilled hands were hired to drove cattle from the inland stations to coastal markets.

   She's droving with her uncle's herd out past the river crossing this month.

   Similardrive

   Note

   A working verb of the stock road, and a regular one: drove, droves, droving, droved. So "hired to drove cattle" and "they droved the herd south" are correct and are not slips for drive. The -ing form often names the job itself, as in Banjo Paterson's The Man from Snowy River (1890): "He's droving now with Conroy's sheep." Sheep are droved as readily as cattle.

5. 5
   verbdialectal

   Dialectal past participle of drive, used where standard English has driven.

   She had drove for hours before the storm finally hit.

   By midnight they had drove the last of the cattle into the yard.

   Note

   A nonstandard participle that simply reuses the past tense: had drove where standard English has had driven. It has a long history in print. Edward Ward's Hudibras redivivus (1706) has "Had drove the frighted Cucks," and the form is still heard, as in a police appeal on BBC News in 2019 to anyone who "have drove that road." In careful writing, use driven.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A road or track along which cattle are, were, or could be driven; a droveway.

   Walkers now use the ancient drove as a scenic footpath.

   The drove wound for miles across the open moorland.

   Similartrack, trail

   Note

   The road sense is no later development. Old English drāf could already mean the track cattle were driven along, as well as the herd itself. Droveway is the unambiguous alternative. It is useful wherever drove alone might be read as the animals rather than the route they took.

7. 7
   nouncollectivecountable

   A group of hares gathered or moving together.

   A drove of hares bolted from the tall grass as we approached.

   The meadow held a drove of hares feeding in the early light.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A broad-edged chisel used to work stone down to a nearly smooth surface.

   The stonemason worked the granite face with a drove until it was nearly smooth.

   A well-sharpened drove leaves shallow parallel marks across the stone.

   Note

   A mason's tool whose name spread to its work. The same word means the grooved finish it leaves and, as a verb, the act of dressing stone with it. Struck across a stone face, the broad edge brings it close to smooth without polishing it. Drove work therefore sits between rough tooling and a fully finished surface.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A narrow drain or channel used to carry water for irrigating land.

   Each drove fed water from the river into the surrounding fields.

   They dug a new drove to drain the waterlogged meadow.

   Similarchannel, ditch, drain

10. 10
    noununcountable

    The finely grooved finish left on stone after working it with a drove chisel.

    Light caught the parallel lines of the drove across the cathedral wall.

    Masons admired the even drove left on the polished block.

11. 11
    verbtransitive

    To finish a stone surface by working it with a drove chisel.

    The contractor asked them to drove the limestone before fitting it.

    Master masons would drove each panel by hand in the old workshop.

    Similardress

    Note

    Here the trap is the present tense. "Masons drove the block" can describe work being done now, not the past of drive. Like the herding verb, it is regular, so yesterday's work was droved. Where a sentence could be misread, "dress the stone with a drove" says the same thing without the ambiguity.

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