fodder
Americannoun
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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
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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
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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:
And, just incidentally, are all high-profile investigations of the future destined to be fodder for the kind of intrusive online “detectives” who were drawn to the city of Moscow like flies to an abattoir?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
Clips from the film, such as Matt Damon's Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship while listening to the sirens' song, have quickly become fodder for social media memes.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
The article became fodder for questions Wednesday before the Fever’s 123-88 victory against the Connecticut Sun.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
But are they just social media fodder, or actually worth spending time and money on?
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
From the dark, heavy look of the sky, visible through the roof of the fodder house, it would be an all-day rain.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Ever fresh Novelgarbage, as of old, fodders the Circulating Libraries.
From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
When good leguminous fodders are fed, from 33 to 50 per cent. less grain will suffice than would be called for when non-leguminous fodders only are fed.
From Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry by Pratt Food Co.
Not infrequently, such fodders as these produce so strong a taint in milk as to render it useless for human use.
From Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying by H. L. (Harry Luman) Russell
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
There seems to be, however, much difference in the dry fodders from different varieties of sorghum.
From One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered by Edward J. (Edward James) Wickson
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
I love to start out arter night's begun, An' all the chores about the farm are done, The critters milked an' foddered, gates shet fast, Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper past.
From The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell by James Russell Lowell
The cow was foddered with after-math, hay, and potatoes; the horse with the same hay and oats.
Before offering to sleep, Dell collected all the articles that were to make up the pack, foddered the horses, set the alarm forward an hour, and sought his blankets for a short rest.
From Wells Brothers The Young Cattle Kings by Andy Adams
The young ones are well foddered, especially while they are still calves.
From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams
Alas! what with foddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too long, and our education is sadly neglected.
From Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The old bread of London, the soiled, stale crusts can be used in foddering the horses which are employed in collecting the waste.
From In Darkest England and the Way Out by William Booth
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
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 came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a furrow.
From The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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.
