# feed

Pronunciation: say "FEED" /ˈfiːd/

## Verb

1. To give food to a person or animal, or to give a particular food to them as a meal.
   - Simple: To give food to a person or animal.
   - _Volunteers feed the shelter dogs every morning._
   - _He was feeding the chickens when the storm rolled in._
2. To eat or take in food, especially as animals do.
   - Simple: To eat, especially when the eater is an animal.
   - _Sharks often feed at dawn and dusk._
   - _The cattle were feeding quietly in the meadow._
3. To give, pass, or send something to a person or thing that receives or uses it, such as information to a reporter or water into a lake.
   - Simple: To give or send a supply of something to a person, place, or thing.
   - _Melting snow feeds the river well into July._
   - _Local farms feed the market with fresh produce every weekend._
8. To supply a machine with the material it works on, or to put material into a machine to be processed.
   - Simple: To put something into a machine so the machine can use it or work on it.
   - _At the recycling plant, two workers feed flattened cardboard into the baler while a third stacks the finished bales._
   - _An automatic loader feeds the press with sheet metal._
9. To strengthen a feeling, belief, or trend or help keep it alive, especially a harmful one.
   - Simple: To help a feeling, idea, or trend grow or last, especially a bad one.
   - _Rising rents continue to feed resentment among longtime residents._
   - _Cheap credit fed a buying frenzy that ended in a crash._
10. To take strength, energy, or support from a source, with on or off after the verb.
   - Simple: To get energy, strength, or support from something. Used with on or off.
   - _Good actors feed on the energy of a live audience._
   - _The campaign fed off growing anger over rising prices._
11. To give a sense, taste, or desire what it wants so that it is satisfied, rather than to make it stronger.
   - Simple: To satisfy a feeling, interest, or wish by giving it what it wants.
   - _Museums feed our curiosity about the past._
   - _Tabloid coverage feeds the public's appetite for scandal._
13. To pass the ball, puck, or similar object to a teammate, especially one in a position to score.
   - Simple: To pass the ball or puck to another player.
   - _Our point guard likes to feed the big man down low whenever he gets good position near the basket._
   - _Defenders who feed the ball forward too slowly invite pressure._
14. To supply plants, or the soil they grow in, with fertilizer or other nutrients that promote growth.
   - Simple: To add fertilizer or other plant food to soil or plants so they grow well.
   - _Many gardeners feed the soil with compost in the fall before spring planting._
   - _She fed the orchids a diluted liquid fertilizer every two weeks._
18. To graze; to cause grass or other plants to be cropped by grazing animals; to use land for grazing.
   - Simple: To let grazing animals eat grass or other plants growing on a piece of land.

## Noun

4. Online content presented as a scrolling or swiping stream, often serving as a home page and drawing on the many publishers a user follows or on algorithmic curation.
   - Simple: A list of posts and updates that you scroll through on an app or website.
   - _Her feed mixes news headlines with posts from friends._
   - _The app's redesigned feed now prioritizes short videos._
5. Food given to animals, especially grazing livestock and other plant-eating species, rather than to humans.
   - Simple: Food given to animals, especially farm animals like cows and horses.
   - _The barn stores enough feed to last the winter._
   - _Rising grain prices have pushed up the cost of cattle feed._
6. A continuous supply of something, such as water, fuel, or data.
   - Simple: A supply of something that keeps coming without stopping.
   - _Reporters watched the live feed from the courtroom._
   - _The greenhouse relies on a constant feed of nutrient solution._
7. A sequence of posts or articles from a single source, usually arranged newest first, often read on a platform other than where they were originally published.
   - Simple: A stream of posts or articles from one website or account, usually with the newest ones first.
   - _Subscribers follow the podcast's feed through an aggregator instead of visiting the site itself._
   - _Each update appears in the feed moments after the source publishes it._
12. The mechanism in a machine that delivers the material the machine is to work on.
   - Simple: The part of a machine that supplies the material the machine works on.
   - _The copier's automatic document feed handles fifty pages at a time._
   - _A jam in the feed stopped the sawmill for an hour._
15. A gathering at which people eat, especially one involving large quantities of food.
   - Simple: A meal or party where people come together and eat a lot.
   - _The fire department holds an annual pancake feed to raise money._
   - _Friends gathered at the lake house for a crab feed that lasted all afternoon._
16. A meal. *(colloquial, Australia, New Zealand, UK)*
   - Simple: A meal, or the food you eat at one sitting.
   - _After the pub quiz, the whole team went out for a decent feed._
   - _He fancied a proper feed of fish and chips on the seafront._
17. The forward motion of the material being passed into or through a machine.
   - Simple: The way material moves forward through a machine while it works.
   - _The machinist adjusted the feed to keep the cutting tool from overheating._
   - _Uneven feed through the rollers left ripples across the sheet metal._
19. The straight man of a comic double act, who supplies the cues and setups for the comedian's punch lines.
   - Simple: A performer in a comedy act whose lines set up the other comedian's jokes.
   - _In their double act, she played feed while her partner delivered the punch lines._
   - _The comic's timing depended on the feed pausing at exactly the right moment._

## Other meanings

- (verb) In linguistics, of a rule: to apply before another rule and create the form or structure that lets that rule apply.
- (verb) Simple past and past participle of fee.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3, 8–11, 13–14, 18** — From Middle English feden, from Old English fēdan ("to feed"), going back through Proto-Germanic *fōdijaną to a Proto-Indo-European root *peh₂- ("to guard, graze, feed"). It is related to Dutch voeden, Swedish föda, and Icelandic fæða, and more distantly to Latin pāscō ("to feed, nourish").
**Meanings 4–7, 12, 15–17, 19** — Middle English had fede, fed, formed from the verb (see above). Another possible source is Old Norse fœða ("nourishment, food"), going back to Proto-Germanic *fōdijaną, the root behind Old English fēdan as well.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/feed (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).