different between bunch vs herd

English

Etymology

From Middle English bunche, bonche (“hump, swelling”), of uncertain origin.

Perhaps a variant of *bunge (compare dialectal bung (“heap, grape bunch”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunk?, *bunkô, *bung? (“heap, crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?en??-, *b?éng??us (“thick, dense, fat”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Bunke (“bone”), West Frisian bonke (“bone, lump, bump”), Dutch bonk (“lump, bone”), Low German Bunk (“bone”), German Bunge (“tuber”), Danish bunke (“heap, pile”), Faroese bunki (“heap, pile”); Hittite [Term?] (/panku/, “total, entire”), Tocharian B pkante (“volume, fatness”), Lithuanian búož? (“knob”), Ancient Greek ????? (pakhús, “thick”), Sanskrit ??? (bahú, “thick; much”)).

Alternatively, perhaps from a variant or diminutive of bump (compare hump/hunch, lump/lunch, etc.); or from dialectal Old French bonge (“bundle”) (compare French bongeau, bonjeau, bonjot), from West Flemish bondje, diminutive of West Flemish bond (“bundle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Noun

bunch (plural bunches)

1. A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
2. (cycling) The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
3. An informal body of friends.

   • “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, […], the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"

4. (US, informal) A considerable amount.

5. (informal) An unmentioned amount; a number.

6. (forestry) A group of logs tied together for skidding.
7. (geology, mining) An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
   • 1874, David Page, Economic Geology: Or, Geology in Its Relations to the Arts and Manufactures

     The ore may be disseminated throughout the matrix in minute particles, as gold in quartz; in parallel threads, strings, and plates, as with copper; in irregular pockets or bunches

8. (textiles) The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
9. An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.

10. A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.

Synonyms

• (group of similar things): cluster, group
• (informal body of friends): pack, group, gang, circle
• (unusual concentration of ore): ore pocket, pocket, pocket of ore, kidney, nest, nest of ore, ore bunch, bunch of ore

Derived terms

• buncha (bunch of)

Translations

Verb

bunch (third-person singular simple present bunches, present participle bunching, simple past and past participle bunched)

1. (transitive) To gather into a bunch.
2. (transitive) To gather fabric into folds.
3. (intransitive) To form a bunch.
4. (intransitive) To be gathered together in folds
5. (intransitive) To protrude or swell
   • 1728, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England

     Bunching out into a large round knob at one end.

Synonyms

• (form a bunch): cluster, group

Derived terms

• bunch up

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /h??d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /h?d/
• Rhymes: -??(?)d
• Homophone: heard

Etymology 1

From Middle English herde, heerde, heorde, from Old English hierd, heord (“herd, flock; keeping, care, custody”), from Proto-Germanic *herd? (“herd”), from Proto-Indo-European *?erd?- (“file, row, herd”). Cognate with German Herde, Swedish hjord. Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian herdhe (“nest”) and Serbo-Croatian krdo.

Noun

herd (plural herds)

1. A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper. [from 11th c.]
   • 1768, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,

     The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.

2. Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company. [from 13th c.]
   • 2007, J. Michael Fay, Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma, National Geographic (March 2007), 47,

     Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd.

3. (now usually derogatory) A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble. [from 15th c.]
   • 1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk, 8 June 1833

     You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

Derived terms

• herd immunity
• herd instinct

Translations

Verb

herd (third-person singular simple present herds, present participle herding, simple past and past participle herded)

1. (intransitive) To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.

   Sheep herd on many hills.
2. (transitive) To unite or associate in a herd
3. (transitive) To manage, care for or guard a herd

4. (intransitive) To associate; to ally oneself with, or place oneself among, a group or company.

   • I’ll herd among his friends, and seem
     One of the number.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English herde, from Old English hirde, hierde, from Proto-West Germanic *hird?, from Proto-Germanic *hirdijaz. Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.

Noun

herd (plural herds)

1. (now rare) Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
   • 2000, Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury 2002, page 38:

     Any talent which gives a good new thing to others is a miracle, but commentators have thought it extra miraculous that England's first known poet was an illiterate herd.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

herd (third-person singular simple present herds, present participle herding, simple past and past participle herded)

1. (intransitive, Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
2. (transitive) To form or put into a herd.
3. (transitive) To move or drive a herd.

Translations

See also

• Appendix:English collective nouns
• drove
• gather
• muster
• round up
• ride herd on

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

herd

1. imperative of herde

Old High German

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *herþ.

Noun

herd m

1. hearth

Descendants

• Middle High German: hert
  • German: Herd
  • Luxembourgish: Häerd