Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process of storing and fermenting green fodder in a silo.
  • noun Fodder preserved in a silo; silage.
  • transitive verb To ensile.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To store by ensilage; store in a pit or silo for preservation. See silo.
  • To make into silage; to ensile.
  • To affect by feeding silage, as ensilaged milk.
  • noun A mode of storing fodder, vegetables, etc., in a green state, by burying it or them in pits or silos dug in the g-round. See silo.
  • noun The fodder, etc., thus preserved.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To preserve in a silo.
  • noun The process of preserving fodder (such as cornstalks, rye, oats, millet, etc.) by compressing it while green and fresh in a pit or vat called a silo, where it is kept covered from the air.
  • noun The fodder preserved in a silo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The process of producing silage by the fermentation of green fodder
  • verb transitive To preserve in a silo.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fodder harvested while green and kept succulent by partial fermentation as in a silo

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from ensiler, to ensile; see ensile.]

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Examples

  • Now it is admitted by general current that the value of common ensilage, which is inferior to that made from sweet corn, is, when compared with good English hay, as 3 to 1.

    Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them A Practical Treatise, Giving Full Details On Every Point, Including Keeping And Marketing The Crop James John Howard Gregory 1868

  • The mass of 'ensilage', the dried and mixed material, loses its nutritional value unless oxygen is eliminated.

    Orangeville 2008

  • That's not a manure fork, but an ensilage fork, used to pitch hay or corn silage.

    The mystery of the furry skull in the barn. Ann Althouse 2009

  • And though the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hemp ensilage, was filled with the sounds of poultry cackling and a baby crying during the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no way served to dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was but part of a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tints which the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade.

    Through Russia 2003

  • · Value of the grain and crop residues for ensilage and for direct feeding to livestock.

    6 Research Needs 1984

  • Two pathways are recommended: (a) fish ensilage for animal feeding supplements, and (b) fish waste utilization to manufacture human food supplements, e.g., fish bars.

    Chapter 9 1983

  • The production of 44,000 metric tons of ensilage represents a 34 percent increase as compared to the same period the previous year.

    29TH ANNIVERSARY OF ASSAULTS ON THE MONCADA 1982

  • Locally available grain, millet, and weed residues are added here to re-emphasize the need to make the best use of existing wastes by supplying starter cultures for better ensilage, or by supplying better designs of biogas digesters or fermenters.

    Chapter 24 1979

  • Ensilage hay and pasture cropsHarvesting silage cropsHandy silage preservative guideCharacteristics of high quality hayStorage of forageCorn or sorghum silage vs. grass silagePit silosProject ensilage - Interim reportProject ensilage - Termination reportCorn or sorghum silage vs. grass silage

    Chapter 7 1976

  • Ensilage hay and pasture cropsHarvesting silage cropsHandy silage preservative guideCharacteristics of high quality hayStorage of forageCorn or sorghum silage vs. grass silagePit silosProject ensilage - Interim reportProject ensilage - Termination reportProject ensilage - Interim report

    Chapter 9 1976

Comments

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  • Ensilage

    The farmers now should all adorn

    A few fields with sweet southern corn,

    It is luscious, thick and tall,

    The beauty of the fields in fall.

    For it doth make best ensilage,

    For those in dairying engage

    It makes the milk in streams to flow,

    Where dairymen have a good silo.

    The cow is a happy rover

    O'er the fields of blooming clover,

    Of it she is a fond lover,

    And it makes the milk pails run over.

    James McIntyre

    June 6, 2009