thrave

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English thraven, from Old English þrafian (“to press; urge; compel; rebuke; argue; contend”), from Proto-Germanic *þrabōną (“to press; drive”), from Proto-Indo-European *trep- (“to scamper; trample; quake; tread”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian troawje, droawje (“to trot”), West Frisian drave (“to trot”), Dutch draven (“to lope; trot”), German traben (“to trot”), Swedish trava (“to trot”), Icelandic þrefa (“to wrangle; dispute”).

Verb

thrave (third-person singular simple present thraves, present participle thraving, simple past and past participle thraved)

1. (transitive, UK, dialectal) To urge; compel; importune.

Related terms

• thraft

Etymology 2

From Middle English thrave, threve, thrafe, from Old Norse þrefi (“a bunch or handful of sheaves”), related to Old Norse þrifa (“to grasp”). Cognate with Swedish trave, Danish trave.

Alternative forms

• threave (obsolete), threve (obsolete)

Noun

thrave (plural thraves)

1. (UK, dialect) A sheaf; a handful.
2. (UK, dialect, obsolete) Twenty-four (or in some places, twelve) sheaves of wheat; a shock, or stook.
   • 1785, Robert Burns, To a Mouse:

     A daimen icker in a thrave / 'S a sma' request;

3. (UK, dialect, obsolete) Two dozen, or similar indefinite number; a bunch; a throng.
   • c. 16th century, Lansdowne MS

     The worst of a thrave.

   • c. 1600, John Ayliffe, Satires:

     He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “thrave”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• raveth