feed
Americanverb (used with object)
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feeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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fed,
past participle, past
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feeding
present participle
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to give food to; supply with nourishment.
to feed a child.
- Antonyms:
- starve
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to yield or serve as food for.
This land has fed 10 generations.
- Antonyms:
- starve
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to provide as food.
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to furnish for consumption.
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to satisfy; minister to; gratify.
Poetry feeds the imagination.
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to supply for maintenance or operation, as to a machine.
to feed paper into a photocopier.
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to provide with the necessary materials for development, maintenance, or operation.
to feed a printing press with paper.
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to use (land) as pasture.
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Theater Informal.
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to supply (an actor, especially a comedian) with lines or action, the responses to which are expected to elicit laughter.
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to provide cues to (an actor).
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Chiefly British. to prompt.
Stand in the wings and feed them their lines.
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Radio and Television. to distribute (a local broadcast) via satellite or network.
verb (used without object)
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feeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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fed,
past participle, past
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feeding
present participle
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(especially of animals) to take food; eat.
cows feeding in a meadow; to feed well.
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to be nourished or gratified; subsist.
to feed on grass; to feed on thoughts of revenge.
noun
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feeds
plural
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food, especially for farm animals, as cattle, horses or chickens.
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an allowance, portion, or supply of such food.
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Informal. a meal, especially a lavish one.
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the act of feeding.
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the act or process of feeding a furnace, machine, etc.
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the material, or the amount of it, so fed or supplied.
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a feeding mechanism.
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Electricity. feeder.
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Theater Informal.
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a line spoken by one actor, the response to which by another actor is expected to cause laughter.
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an actor, especially a straight man, who provides such lines.
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a local television broadcast distributed by satellite or network to a much wider audience, especially nationwide or international.
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Digital Technology.
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a website or application that publishes updates from social media or news-collection websites in reverse chronological order.
I follow all of the latest celebrity gossip in my Twitter feed.
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an XML-based web document that is updated automatically at predetermined intervals and includes descriptive titles or short descriptions and links to recent pages on a website.
Subscribe to news feeds to get the latest news from around the world.
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idioms
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chain feed, to pass (work) successively into a machine in such a manner that each new piece is held in place by or connected to the one before.
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off one's feed,
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reluctant to eat; without appetite.
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dejected; sad.
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not well; ill.
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verb
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to give food to
to feed the cat
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to give as food
to feed meat to the cat
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(intr) to eat food
the horses feed at noon
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to provide food for
these supplies can feed 10 million people
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to provide what is necessary for the existence or development of
to feed one's imagination
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to gratify; satisfy
to feed one's eyes on a beautiful sight
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(also intr) to supply (a machine, furnace, etc) with (the necessary materials or fuel) for its operation, or (of such materials) to flow or move forwards into a machine, etc
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to use (land) as grazing
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informal theatre to cue (an actor, esp a comedian) with lines or actions
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sport to pass a ball to (a team-mate)
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electronics to introduce (electrical energy) into a circuit, esp by means of a feeder
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(also intr; foll by on or upon) to eat or cause to eat
noun
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the act or an instance of feeding
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food, esp that of animals or babies
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the process of supplying a machine or furnace with a material or fuel
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the quantity of material or fuel so supplied
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computing a facility allowing web users to receive news headlines and updates on their browser from a website as soon as they are published
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the rate of advance of a cutting tool in a lathe, drill, etc
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a mechanism that supplies material or fuel or controls the rate of advance of a cutting tool
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informal theatre a performer, esp a straight man, who provides cues
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informal a meal
Synonym Usage
Feed, fodder, forage, provender mean food for animals. Feed is the general word: pig feed; chicken feed. Fodder is especially applied to dry or green feed, as opposed to pasturage, fed to horses, cattle, etc.: fodder for winter feeding; Cornstalks are good fodder. Forage is food that an animal obtains (usually grass, leaves, etc.) by searching about for it: Lost cattle can usually live on forage. Provender denotes dry feed, such as hay, oats, or corn: a supply of provender in the haymow and corn cribs.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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feedsimple
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feedssimple
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have fedperfect
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has fedperfect
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am feedingprogressive
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are feedingprogressive
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is feedingprogressive
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have been feedingperfect progressive
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has been feedingperfect progressive
Past
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fedsimple
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had fedperfect
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was feedingprogressive
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were feedingprogressive
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had been feedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of feed
First recorded before 950; Middle English feden, Old English fēdan; cognate with Gothic fōdjan, Old Saxon fōdian. See food
Explanation
To feed someone is to give them something to eat. Part of your daily morning routine might be remembering to feed your cat. When you feed a dog, you put food in his bowl, and when you feed your extended family, you might cook them a Thanksgiving feast. Animals are sometimes said "to feed," or to consume or eat, and you can also use the word to mean "food for an animal," or "to supply or promote." The Old English root is fedan, "nourish, sustain, or foster."
Vocabulary lists containing feed
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Wheat’s energy share is 19%, he noted, while a turkey’s energy share is around 8%, mostly from the feed costs.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
“Every opportunity we have to feed ourselves, it’s like the world shows up and says, ‘No, you don’t.’
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026
So now Trump is launching his own news service, which is mostly just a live feed on the White House app and YouTube channel.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
Livestock decreases due to lack of land and feed, opening up more space for crops.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
Now the night life of the river came forth to feed on one another.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
Simultaneously, higher volatility feeds risk models triggering margin calls and deleveraging as lenders further tighten liquidity.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
All this to say, I understand why the question of whether iced coffee is unprofessional has taken over my feeds for the last several days.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
How common are unmarked ads in social-media feeds?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
She tells the BBC: "We're going to be having a messy girl summer" and says "it's a reaction to the clean girl and quite luxury aesthetics that took over our Instagram feeds," last year.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
Chou feeds Geak from her own bowl, being careful Geak doesn’t spill or drop anything.
From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung
After everyone else is fed, taken care of, and ready to go, you can focus on yourself.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026
Pruett ushered them inside, fed them and sent them away with some cash — after making them wash their own dishes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
China wants most of its data centres to be fuelled by green energy by 2030 - but some of its grid is still fed by coal power.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
A similarly large decline occurred in pellets from termites fed Douglas fir, a wood commonly used for house framing.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
I made beds and fed the dogs and built up a large fire.
From "Woodsong" by Gary Paulsen
One worker told fire investigators Altus had been working on the panels, but Lineage was unaware if the solar panels were already feeding power to the grid.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
In 2026, researchers highlighted images and video of western drywood termites performing proctodeal trophallaxis, a feeding behavior in which one termite receives material from another termite's hindgut.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
In one video, the workers unwind a line of black tubing, or conduit, from a spool the size of a small car, before feeding it into the ground.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026
Eastward-shifting ocean evaporation generates warm air that rises into the atmosphere and then migrates north and east, gathering speed and feeding into the subtropical jet stream.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
“Maybe the human will stop feeding me,” I whuffle softly.
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
