nutriment

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nūtrīmentum (“nourishment, nurture”),^[2][3][4] from nūtriō (“to nourish, suckle, feed”) and the suffix -mentum.^[2][5][6] The OED compares French nutriment (14th century), Italian nutrimento, Spanish nutrimento and Portuguese nutrimento.^[2] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *(s)nāu- (“to swim, flow, let flow”), hence "to suckle",^[6][3][7] and Hoad relates it to a Sanskrit verb meaning "drips, trickles", said for instance of a mother's milk.^[8][9] The same Latin verb gave English nourish, nurse, nutrition and nurture.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

That which nourishes; food, nourishment: the OED's first record is a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie of perhaps before 1425,^[2] and Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century.^[6] The Middle English Dictionary, whose first quotation is from Pecock (c. 1454), glosses it as food or drink, sustenance, and in physiology nourishment.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first sense, nourishing matter; from the late 15th century it was also used of a single nourishing food.^[2] Its figurative use, for spiritual, intellectual or artistic nourishment, is recorded from 1597, in Middleton.^[2][4] From 1535 it also meant the act of nourishing or fostering, a sense the OED now calls somewhat archaic.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as that which feeds or nourishes, food, quoting Shakespeare.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1425 – that which nourishes; food, nourishment.^[2]
• c. 1454 – food or drink, sustenance.^[10]
• c. 1485 – a nourishing food.^[2]
• 1535 – the act of nourishing or fostering.^[2]
• 1597 – figurative, spiritual or intellectual nourishment.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Something that nourishes a living thing and helps it grow and repair itself; food, nourishment: The soil supplies the plants with nutriment.^[5][12][2]
2. Something that nourishes the mind or spirit.^[2][4]
3. (archaic) The act of nourishing or fostering.^[2]

Word family

• nutrimental

Related words

• nutrient
• nutrition
• nutritious
• nourish
• nurse
• nurture

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Watkins, Calvert (2000), "Indo-European Roots", appendix to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins