feed
/fiːd/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.67 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To give (someone or something) to (someone or something else) as food.
Example Sentences
- "Feed the dog every evening."
- "If thine enemy hunger, feed him."
- "Spiders feed on gnats and flies."
- "“The treasurer was of the same opinion: he showed to what straits his majesty’s revenue was reduced, by the charge of maintaining you, which would soon grow insupportable; that the secretary’s expedient of putting out your eyes, was so far from being a remedy against this evil, that it would probably increase it, as is manifest from the common practice of blinding some kind of fowls, after which they fed the faster, and grew sooner fat;[...]"
- "But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶[…]The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge,[…]."
- "If we have time we might go on to Brighton, feed at the 'Ship,' and come back in the cool."
Etymology
From Middle English feden, from Old English fēdan (“to feed”), from Proto-West Germanic *fōdijan, from Proto-Germanic *fōdijaną (“to feed”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to guard, graze, feed”). Cognate with West Frisian fiede (“to nourish, feed”), Dutch voeden (“to feed”), Danish føde (“to bring forth, feed”), Swedish föda (“to bring forth, feed”), Icelandic fæða (“to feed”), and more distantly with Latin pāscō (“feed, nourish”, verb) through Indo-European. More at food, fodder.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Food.