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

I watched doctors in the intensive care unit bottle-feed an injured six-month-old girl whose parents can't be found.

From BBC • Feb. 10, 2023

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

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