Feeding

feed  (fd)

v. fed (fd), feed·ing, feeds

v.tr.

1.

a. To give food to; supply with nourishment: feed the children.

b. To provide as food or nourishment: fed fish to the cat.

2.

a. To serve as food for: The turkey is large enough to feed a dozen.

b. To produce food for: The valley feeds an entire county.

3.

a. To provide for consumption, utilization, or operation: feed logs to a fire; feed data into a computer.

b. To supply with something essential for growth, maintenance, or operation: Melting snow feeds the reservoirs.

c. To distribute (a local radio or television broadcast) to a larger audience or group of receivers by way of a network or satellite.

4.

a. To minister to; gratify: fed their appetite for the morbid.

b. To support or promote; encourage: His unexplained absences fed our suspicions.

5. To supply as a cue: feed lines to an actor.

6. Sports To pass a ball or puck to (a teammate), especially to set up a scoring chance.

v.intr.

1. To eat: pigs feeding at a trough.

2. To be nourished or supported: an ego that feeds on flattery.

3.

a. To move steadily, as into a machine for processing.

b. To be channeled; flow: This road feeds into the freeway.

n.

1.

a. Food for animals or birds.

b. The amount of such food given at one time.

2. Informal A meal, especially a large one.

3. The act of eating.

4.

a. Material or an amount of material supplied, as to a machine or furnace.

b. The act of supplying such material.

5.

a. An apparatus that supplies material to a machine.

b. The aperture through which such material enters a machine.

6.

a. The transmission or conveyance of a local radio or television program, as by satellite, on the Internet, or by broadcast over a network of stations.

b. A program or signal so transmitted or conveyed.

7. Sports A pass of a ball or puck, especially to set up a scoring chance.

Idiom:

off (one's) feed

Suffering a lack of appetite; sick: The dog is off its feed this week.

---

[Middle English feden, from Old English fdan; see p- in Indo-European roots.]

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	feeding - the act of consuming food eating chewing, mastication, chew, manduction - biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow mycophagy - the practice of eating fungi (especially mushrooms collected in the wild) consumption, ingestion, intake, uptake - the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating) chomp, bite - the act of gripping or chewing off with the teeth and jaws browsing, browse - the act of feeding by continual nibbling coprophagia, coprophagy - eating feces; in human a symptom of some kinds of insanity dining - the act of eating dinner engorgement - eating ravenously or voraciously to satiation banqueting, feasting - eating an elaborate meal (often accompanied by entertainment) grazing, graze - the act of grazing lunching - the act of eating lunch repletion, surfeit - eating until excessively full supping - ingestion of liquid food with a spoon or by drinking degustation, relishing, savoring, savouring, tasting - taking a small amount into the mouth to test its quality; "cooking was fine but it was the savoring that he enjoyed most" necrophagia, necrophagy - feeding on corpses or carrion omophagia - the eating of raw food scatophagy - the eating of excrement or other filth
	2.	feeding - the act of supplying food and nourishment alimentation lactation, suckling - feeding an infant by giving suck at the breast supplying, provision, supply - the activity of supplying or providing something infant feeding - feeding an infant forced feeding, gavage - feeding that consists of the delivery of a nutrient solution (as through a nasal tube) to someone who cannot or will not eat intravenous feeding, IV - administration of nutrients through a vein overfeeding - excessive feeding spoonfeeding - feeding someone (as a baby) from a spoon hyperalimentation, total parenteral nutrition, TPN - administration of a nutritionally adequate solution through a catheter into the vena cava; used in cases of long-term coma or severe burns or severe gastrointestinal syndromes