bottle-feed

American  

[bot-l-feed] / ˈbɒt lˌfid /

verb (used with object)

bottle-fed, bottle-feeding

1. to nurse or feed (an infant or young animal) with milk or other nourishment from a nursing bottle.

2. to nurture or teach with exaggerated care.

   We had to bottle-feed the new salesman on how to make door-to-door calls.

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verb (used without object)

bottle-fed, bottle-feeding

1. to feed an infant or young animal from a nursing bottle.

bottle-feed British  

verb

1. to feed (a baby) with milk from a bottle instead of breast-feeding

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Etymology

Origin of bottle-feed

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

In an email, Mike Ridgway, the child’s father, said he had given Ramirez “space to both nurse and to pump milk for me to bottle-feed our daughter while she is in my care.”

From Washington Post • Feb. 1, 2023

Or bottle-feed a joey on Australia’s Kangaroo Island?

From New York Times • Jan. 12, 2023

Are you going to breastfeed or bottle-feed or some combination of both?

From Slate • Sep. 22, 2020

MeoowzResQ agreed to foster and bottle-feed the puppies, authorities said.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2019

Over coffee they shiver: they themselves are fastidious, they will bottle-feed, which is anyway more sanitary.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

Related Words

• cradle
• feed
• nourish