thrave meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

thrave

verb

Etymology From Middle English thraven, from Old English þrafian (“to press; urge; compel; rebuke; argue; contend”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrabōn, 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”).

UK, Dialectal To urge; compel; importune.

Related terms: thraft

thrave

noun

Etymology 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.

UK, Dialectal A sheaf; a handful.

UK, Dialectal, Obsolete Twenty-four (or in some places, twelve) sheaves of wheat; a shock, or stook.

A daimen icker in a thrave / 'S a sma' request;1785, Robert Burns, To a Mouse:

UK, Dialectal, Obsolete Two dozen, or similar indefinite number; a bunch; a throng.

c. 16th century, Lansdowne manuscript The worst of a thrave.
He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.1597, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes, of Tooth-lesse Satyrs. […], London: […] Thomas Creede, for Robert Dexter, →OCLC: