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feed

noun

  1. food for farm animals
  2. input in a communications system
L33086 on Wikidata ↗

verb

  1. provide nourishment to
  2. cause to eat
  3. provide additional basis, emphasis, or energy towards
L5341 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈfiːd/ / [ˈfɪi̯d]

noun

Etymology: From Middle English fede, fed, from the verb (see above). Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse fœða (“nourishment, food”), from Proto-Germanic *fōdijaną (“to feed”), whence also Old English fēdan (“to feed”).

  1. Food given to (especially herbivorous) non-human animals.

    They sell feed, riding helmets, and everything else for horses.

  2. Something supplied continuously.

    a satellite feed

  3. The part of a machine that supplies the material to be operated upon.

    the paper feed of a printer

  4. The forward motion of the material fed into a machine.
  5. A meal.

    184?, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor One proposed going to Hungerford-market to do a feed on decayed shrimps or other offal laying about the market; another proposed going to Covent-garden to do a 'tightener' of rotten oranges, to which I was humorously invited; […]

    "There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at restaurants."

  6. A gathering to eat, especially in large quantities.

    They held a crab feed on the beach.

  7. online content presented sequentially:

    I've subscribed to the feeds of my favourite blogs, so I can find out when new posts are added without having to visit those sites.

  8. online content presented sequentially:

    Refresh the top of your various “feeds” — the running column of content on some versions of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — and you will see the latest news at the top. The further back you scroll, the older the material gets.

    I use Native, that’s what other Native people on Facebook use. I have 660 friends. Tons of Native friends in my feed. Most of my friends, though, are people I don’t know, who’d happily friended me upon request.

  9. A straight man who delivers lines to the comedian during a performance.

    Don Ward is often described as a former comic, having some experience in this area as a young man, acting as a feed for the comic actor David Lodge at Parkins Holiday Camp in Jersey […]

verb

Etymology: See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

  1. simple past and past participle of fee