victual
Americannoun
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victuals, food supplies; provisions.
-
food or provisions for human beings.
verb (used with object)
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victuals,
present (3rd person singular)
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victualed,
past participle, past
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victualled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
victualing,
present participle
-
victualling
present participle (especially British)
verb (used without object)
-
victuals,
present (3rd person singular)
-
victualed,
past participle, past
-
victualled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
victualing,
present participle
-
victualling
present participle (especially British)
-
to take or obtain victuals.
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Archaic. to eat or feed.
verb
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to supply with or obtain victuals
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rare (intr) (esp of animals) to partake of victuals
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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revictualverb
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unvictualedadjective
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unvictualledadjective
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victual-lessadjective
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victuallessadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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victualsimple
-
victualssimple
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have victualedperfect
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have victualledperfect
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has victualedperfect
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has victualledperfect
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am victualingprogressive
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am victuallingprogressive
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are victualingprogressive
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are victuallingprogressive
-
is victualingprogressive
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is victuallingprogressive
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have been victualingperfect progressive
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have been victuallingperfect progressive
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has been victualingperfect progressive
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has been victuallingperfect progressive
Past
-
victualedsimple
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victualledsimple
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had victualedperfect
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had victualledperfect
-
was victualingprogressive
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was victuallingprogressive
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were victualingprogressive
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were victuallingprogressive
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had been victualingperfect progressive
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had been victuallingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of victual
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English vitaille, from Anglo-French, Middle French vitail(l)e, Old French vituaille, from Late Latin victuālia “provisions,” noun use of neuter plural of Latin victuālis “pertaining to food,” equivalent to victu(s) “nourishment, way of living” ( vic-, variant stem of vīvere “to live” + -tus suffix of verb action) + -ālis -al 1; modern spelling from Latin
Explanation
A victual is anything that can be eaten. Victuals are food. Victual is a fancy word for a very simple thing: any substance that can be used as food. Everything in the food pyramid is a victual, and whatever you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks are victuals. Words that apply to victuals are eatable and edible. A toddler eating a cigarette butt doesn't quite understand what's a victual and what's not.
Vocabulary lists containing victual
Much Ado About Nothing
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The Secret Garden
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Quartering Act (1765)
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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:
Scholars long thought that the capability to construct and victual a watercraft and then navigate it to a distant coast arrived only with advent of agriculture and animal domestication.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 24, 2018
In 1592, Hideyoshi, founder of the navy, used his ships to land troops in Korea, to victual their beachheads.
From Time Magazine Archive
Preachments against war have come to savor strongly of zwieback, a victual which most people can take or leave at will.
From Time Magazine Archive
Finally the ship had so much victual booty that an extra meal was served: afternoon coffee with bonbons.
From Time Magazine Archive
Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to meet the charges of my lodging.
From Idonia: A Romance of Old London by Arthur F. Wallis
So ubiquitous are highly processed, highly palatable victuals for children that microwaves are now fitted with special settings to heat them up.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
When it’s in the hands of cinematic chef and film critic Justin Chang, the visual victuals can be sumptuous.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2022
“It tastes like chewing on a urine-infested mattress,” said Samuel West, who, as curator of the Disgusting Food Museum, knows a thing or two about unpleasant victuals.
From Reuters ● Nov. 2, 2018
He wants victuals to eventually account for 25 percent of U.S. sales, up from 20 percent now.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 5, 2017
“I’m in charge now. I’ll take the victuals you brought.”
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
Buffets of barbecued brisket, ham on the bone and oysters victualed the multitudes as they passed through exhibitions of work by Alexander Calder, Yto Barrada, Peter Hujar and David Hockney.
From New York Times ● Sep. 18, 2019
But the Herald Tribune has never found it easy to keep its 62-year-old outpost victualed and supplied.
From Time Magazine Archive
He sent to far kingdoms for woodsmen, carpenters, metalsmiths, goldsmiths—also carters, victualed, clothiers to attend to the workmen—and for weeks their uproar filled the days and nights.
From "Grendel" by John Gardner
"But you don't get a company of two hundred horse and horsemen watered and victualed and armed and saddled and started all in a minute. Now: what's our direction? Due North?"
From "The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis
He manned and victualed the Springbok for a long voyage, ordered her to Plymouth, and took his friend down to her by train.
From Foul Play by Charles Reade
The caravel was well victualled and it was manned by men ready for toils, and Alvaro Fernandez was young in years and audacious.
From The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea Vol. II by Gomes Eannes de Zurara
One of the greatest, to my way of thinking, was the way we were victualled.
From The Recipe for Diamonds by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
The place was strong, so far as walls and bulwarks could make it, but it was not well victualled, and after a five-weeks' siege it was obliged to capitulate.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Rossiter Johnson
This vessel was therefore well victualled, and sailed under the command of a certain Vallecillo for the last-mentioned island.
From The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 2 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Suspending their audacious patrolling before the galleries under construction, these spoilers of the victualled cells alight for an instant on a camomile-flower and lo, the thief is robbed!
From The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
We rose early & assembled on the Green, & met there with the rest of the victualing Party.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
On the other side, we see eighty departments who have this day labored, without concert, without mutual understanding, for the victualing of Paris.
From Sophisms of the Protectionists by Horace White
The French garrison were living upon salted horse-flesh, and you may guess, therefore, at the condition of the civilians' victualing department.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. by Various
The exemption of the sick from these penalties was abolished by James I., and justices were authorized to enter victualing houses and search and forfeit the meat found there.
From Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature by Emma Goldman
The ships had their magazines filled, their bunkers and oil tanks charged, their victualing completed, and last, but not least, their full crews aboard.
From America's War for Humanity by Thomas Herbert Russell
Project leaders said it was "an exciting opportunity to examine part of an early victualling yard".
From BBC ● Jan. 12, 2022
The following year complaints began to trickle in from victualling yards in the UK and from British seamen around the world that other parts of animals were being found in canned meat.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2013
Still following the ascent, in process of time we gained the engineers’ quarters, the first building which marks the Ridge; and opposite to it is the victualling office.
From Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume I (of 2) A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day by Anonymous
Did not Annette think that a respectable boarding house or something select in the licensed victualling line might do?
From The Weight of the Crown by Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White
The mess caterer is the officer selected to superintend the victualling department, as the wine caterer does the liquid refreshments.
From The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1 by Frederick Whymper
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.
