cattle drive
4
6.3
- noun
- /ˈkætəl draɪv/
:
movedura de ganado
- The old cowboy shared stories about his days participating in a cattle drive along the historic trails.
- Texas cattle drive
- go on a cattle drive
- annual cattle drive
Examples
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It was the start of the cattle drive.
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How much you figure your share of the cattle drive?
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Time for a cattle drive.
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Have fun on that cattle drive!
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Well, any of ya ever been on a cattle drive?
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I mean, way before we began this cattle drive.
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It's a real old-fashioned cattle drive.
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Travis's father leaves the family for several months to go on a cattle drive.
Academic text (1994) -
The story focuses on fourteen-year-old Travis, who is charged with running the family farm when his father leaves on a cattle drive.
Academic text (1994) -
That first cattle drive took Joshua from Texas up to Abilene, Kansas.
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
133
3.5
An organized effort to reach a goal or the movement of animals together
How Large
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun 'cattle drive' is a straightforward composition of 'cattle' (herd of bovines) and 'drive' (to herd or move animals), so the overall meaning — moving a large herd from one place to another — is directly inferable from the parts. This is a literal, non-idiomatic construction and follows common cross-linguistic compounding patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would understand it.
Etymology
Cattle drive comes from the image of cowboys on horseback moving a large group of cattle along a trail to market. Because the riders 'drove' the animals long distances, the phrase means 'the process of moving a large herd of cattle from one place to another'.