fodder
Americannoun
-
fodders
plural
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coarse food for livestock, composed of entire plants, including leaves, stalks, and grain, of such forages as corn and sorghum.
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people considered as readily available and of little value.
cannon fodder.
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raw material.
fodder for a comedian's routine.
verb (used with object)
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fodders,
present (3rd person singular)
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foddered,
past participle, past
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foddering
present participle
noun
-
bulk feed for livestock, esp hay, straw, etc
-
raw experience or material
fodder for the imagination
verb
Synonym Usage
See feed.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
foddersimple
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fodderssimple
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have fodderedperfect
-
has fodderedperfect
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am fodderingprogressive
-
are fodderingprogressive
-
is fodderingprogressive
-
have been fodderingperfect progressive
-
has been fodderingperfect progressive
Past
-
fodderedsimple
-
had fodderedperfect
-
was fodderingprogressive
-
were fodderingprogressive
-
had been fodderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fodder
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English fodder, fōdor; cognate with German Futter; akin to food
Explanation
Fodder is cheap food, usually given to livestock animals like cows. If you gave a cow caviar or homemade scones, that would not be fodder. Try cornstalks. Fodder is not just used to describe cattle feed. We use the word to talk about other kinds of feeding that don't involve actual food. A new celebrity marriage is fodder for gossip magazines. In war, the soldiers most likely to be killed, are called cannon fodder, from the times when armies used canons instead of drone aircraft dropping missiles.
Vocabulary lists containing fodder
Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Ender's Game
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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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:
“I mean, the whole world of the MFA felt like fodder for horror.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
It has demanded a recovery plan to include fodder and subsidy support for farmers.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
There were the Oreos that became boycott fodder after the brand released an ad centered on a young man coming out to his family.
From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2026
The fodder situation is "highly degraded" in almost all regions, the ministry said earlier this month.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Back of the main column the baggage train followed: mules, j horses, oxen, a mile of wayns and carts laden with food, fodder, tents, and other provisions.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Only feed which is of good quality and only grain and coarse fodders which are free from dirt and mould should be used.
From Outlines of dairy bacteriology A concise manual for the use of students in dairying by Edwin George Hastings
It is preferable to feed meal admixed with cut fodders.
From Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry by Pratt Food Co.
They love the stack and hay-barn in the distant field, where the farmer fodders his cattle upon the snow, and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left standing in the fall adds to their winter stores.
From Birds and Poets : with Other Papers by John Burroughs
Dairymen prefer it to nearly all kinds of fodders grown, and the same is true of shepherds.
From Clovers and How to Grow Them by Thomas Shaw
The Chondrosium foeneum is one of the finest fodders in the world for the food of cattle, almost equal to unthrashed oats.
From The Hunters' Feast Conversations Around the Camp Fire by Mayne Reid
In the metaphorical strain of a certain writer—"Phoebus drove his steeds to be foddered in their western stables."
From Inez A Tale of the Alamo by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans
Have any men come home to the young women, Thinking old women do not need to hear, That you can play at being a bower-maid In a long gown although no beasts are foddered?
From King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve; Laodice and Dana? by Gordon Bottomley
I have not taken yet my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went to see our cows foddered, yesterday afternoon.
From Transcendentalism in New England A History by Octavius Brooks Frothingham
At 2 p.m., or thereabouts, they are foddered again, and at 4 p.m. receive the same food as at the morning meal.
From The Stock-Feeder's Manual the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and feeding of live stock by Sir Charles Alexander Cameron
The cows came briskly to the rack in which he foddered them in pleasant weather, and when he scratched them between the horns they turned their mild, Juno-like eyes upon him with undisguised affection.
From He Fell in Love with His Wife by Edward Payson Roe
A man leading a horse to water, or foddering his cattle from a stack in a snow-covered field, or following his plough, is always pleasing.
From The Last Harvest by John Burroughs
He knew nothing about foddering a vessel’s bottom, much less how to fodder it with the carcase of one of his fellow-creatures.
From Snarley-yow or The Dog Fiend by Frederick Marryat
"Yes, the farmer takes lots of comfort, walking on the road, foddering cattle, cutting wood."
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 by Various
The foddering them from the stack in the field in winter also fell to the lot of the older members of the family.
From My Boyhood by John Burroughs
We gave the sheep a foddering of hay and then got the flock outdoors.
From A Busy Year at the Old Squire's by C. A. (Charles Asbury) Stephens
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.
