[French (term probably introduced by Napoleon I, the first to award the decoration to French units), from fourragère, feminine of fourrager, of or relating to forage (probably as in corde fourragère, alternate term for corde à fourrage, forage rope, a length of rope for trussing bundles of hay forming part of the kit of cavalry, traditionally carried by Austrian dragoons around their shoulders and later developing into an ornament from their practice) : fourrage, forage (from Old French forrage) ; see FORAGE + -ier, adjectival suffix.]