pabulum
[pab-yuh-luh m]
- something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriment.
- material for intellectual nourishment.
- pablum(def 2).
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Origin of pabulum
1670–80; < Latin pābulum food, nourishment, equivalent to pā(scere) to feed (akin to food) + -bulum noun suffix of instrument
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pabulum
Historical Examples
Pabulum is nothing without a preëxisting "something" to dispose of it.
Life: Its True GenesisR. W. Wright
If they do not, no pabulum ever after, will their indurated tissues assimilate.
The Book of KhalidAmeen Rihani
The grove gave them wood; the stream, water; the plain, pabulum for their horses.
The War TrailMayne Reid
Inflammable matter may be considered as the pabulum of life.
Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4)James Hutton
It offered no pabulum to the wrongdoer in the form of compensation for stolen humanity.
The AbolitionistsJohn F. Hume
pabulum
- food
- food for thought, esp when bland or dull
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Word Origin
C17: from Latin, from pascere to feed
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for pabulum
n.
"food" for anything, 1670s, from Latin pabulum "fodder, food, nourishment," from PIE root *pa- "to protect, feed" (see food) + instrumentive suffix *-dhlom.
Pablum (1932), derived from this, is a trademark (Mead Johnson & Co.) for a soft, bland cereal used as a food for infants and weak and invalid people, hence figurative use (attested from 1970, first by U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew) in reference to "mushy" political prose.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper