thrave

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”).

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

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

• thraft

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.

• threave (obsolete), threve (obsolete)

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.

• raveth