feed
Americanverb (used with object)
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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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(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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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:
Large-scale commodity crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans — which go into myriad processed foods as well as into sweeteners and animal feed — behave a little differently, he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026
“The renewed blockade would intensify this hardship and feed into further currency depreciation, inflation, shortages, factory closures and employment losses,” said Hadi Kahalzadeh, an economist and former official in Iran’s Social Security Organization.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
McGurn warned that Trump Media will soon block these methods, forcing firms to buy the official feed instead.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2026
Davryn McDuffie didn’t know people could bet on reality TV until a Kalshi ad for “Love Island” trading came across her social media feed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
He can count, feed and dress himself, and sing.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
Young amphibians are largely protected because tadpoles and larvae lack the keratin rich skin that Bd feeds on.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
No one has yet curated the perfect user base or algorithm to map people’s feeds exactly onto the preferences of the country, or even Maine primary voters.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
This then feeds through to the insurance price.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
Another type of data is collected via a human operator remotely controlling a physical robot while the system records synchronized data like camera feeds and joint states to train foundation models, they say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
“But there’s food for the body and food for the spirit. And Shiloh sure enough feeds our spirit.”
From "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Over the years, they had gotten fed up with the U.A.E. for what they viewed as duplicitous behavior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
"I lost lots of weight, lost my hair, I had to be tube fed," she said.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Birds of Poole Harbour founder Paul Morton said, after flying for the first time, ospreys generally return to the nest three to four times a day for a month to get fed.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
“If you’ve only fed them junk food and then you put some beautiful Michelin-star food in front of them, it’ll seem alien to them,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
I stayed by Gran’s side and fed her broth.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
For the entirety of his short life at the neonatal intensive care unit, he had the cannula through his nose to facilitate his breathing and a feeding tube between his lips.
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2026
Manufacturers facing higher costs and shortages then cut production and jobs, feeding a cycle in which recession and inflation reinforce each other.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Every moment spent scanning for threats is time taken away from feeding.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
That’s feeding a disconnect between what the labor market looks like on paper and how many Americans are feeling about their job prospects.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026
Even with the rain, the cows needed milking, the chickens needed feeding, and Aunt Pretty needed someone to stir the catsup she was making, and to taste it as well.
From "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney
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.
