Dictionary Definition
foray
Noun
2 an initial attempt (especially outside your
usual areas of competence); "scientists' forays into
politics"
Verb
1 steal goods; take as spoils; "During the
earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their
owners" [syn: plunder,
despoil, loot, reave, strip, rifle, ransack, pillage]
2 briefly enter enemy territory
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
Extensive Definition
A foray (lang-pl zajazd) was a traditional method
of law enforcement in Poland. In view of
the weakness of the executive
in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was effectively used by
members of the szlachta
to defend their rights.
In legal practice, zajazd was sanctioned by
starosta official, and
was the fourth step in the execution of a legal ruling. After the
guilty party refused to abandon the disputed property, starost
would call his supporters as well as opponents of the guilty party
(therefore creating a temporary force of militia) and attmept remove the
guilty party from his manor.
Since the mid-17th century increasingly zajazds
were done without a legal sanction simply when a member of szlachta
would gather his supporters and raid an estate of his
opponent.
They would become a common occurrence during the
period of noble's
anarchy in the Commonwealth.
In literature, zajazds were most famously
portrayed in Adam
Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz,
as well as in The Trilogy (With
Fire and Sword, The
Deluge, Fire
in the Steppe) of Henryk
Sienkiewicz.
foray in Polish: Zajazd (zwyczaj)
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
air attack, air raid, air strike, banditry, board, boarding, brigandage, brigandism, depredate, depredation, despoil, despoiling, despoilment, despoliation, direption, escalade, fire raid, fleece, forage, foraging, freeboot, freebooting, gut, harass, harry, incursion, inroad, inundate, invade, invasion, irruption, loot, looting, make a raid, make an
inroad, maraud, marauding, overrun, overswarm, overwhelm, pillage, pillaging, plunder, plundering, prey on, raid, raiding, ransack, ransacking, rape, rapine, ravage, ravagement, ravaging, raven, ravish, ravishment, razzia, reive, reiving, rifle, rifling, sack, sacking, saturation raid,
scale, scale the walls,
scaling, shuttle raid,
spoil, spoiling, spoliate, spoliation, storm, sweep, take by storm