feed

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fiːd/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English feden,^[2][3] inherited from Old English fēdan (“to nourish, give food to, sustain, foster”),^[4][2] from Proto-Germanic *fodjan,^[4] the source also of Old Saxon fōdian, Old Frisian fēda, Dutch voeden, Old High German fuoten, Old Norse fœða and Gothic fōdjan,^[4][2] a verb formed from the source of food,^[5][3][2] from Proto-Indo-European *pa- (“to feed”).^[4] The noun is from the verb.^[4][2] It is related to fodder and foster.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give food to: Old English fēdan, about 725 in Genesis A according to Barnhart;^[2] the OED has about 950.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The spelling feed is first recorded about 1385 and became established after 1550.^[2] The intransitive sense “to take food, eat” is from the late 14th century,^[4] and “to supply as food” from 1818.^[4] The noun, the action of feeding, is from the 1570s,^[4][6] and a right to graze from 1573.^[2] Food for animals is first attested in the 1580s, in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (1588).^[4][2] “A sumptuous meal” is colloquial, from 1808,^[4][6] and in machinery the supply of raw material, or the mechanism for it, is from 1892.^[4] Feedback is from 1920.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English fēdan.^[2]
• late 14th century – to eat.^[4]
• 1573 – noun, the right to graze.^[2]
• 1588 – food for animals.^[2]
• 1808 – a large meal.^[4][6]
• 1892 – the supply of material to a machine.^[4]
• 1920 – feedback.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To give food to; to supply with nourishment.
2. To give as food: fed oats to the horses.
3. Of animals, to eat.
4. To supply with what is needed for growth or operation: feed a furnace.
5. To move steadily into a machine, or to channel into something.
6. To give a cue or line to an actor.

Noun

1. Food for animals; fodder.
2. (informal) A large meal.
3. Material supplied to a machine, or the mechanism that supplies it.
4. A broadcast or stream of content supplied to a network or online.

Word family

• feedable
• bottle-feed
• bottom-feeding
• cornfed
• drip-feed
• feeder
• feedhole
• feeding

Related words

• food
• fodder
• foster
• feedback
• forage
• pasture

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press