Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.
  • noun A specified kind of nourishment.
  • noun Nourishment eaten in solid form.
  • noun Something that nourishes or sustains in a way suggestive of physical nourishment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun What is eaten for nourishment; whatever supplies nourishment to organic bodies; nutriment; aliment; victuals; provisions: as, the food of animals consists mainly of organic substances; a great scarcity of food; the food of plants.
  • noun Hence Anything that sustains, nourishes, and augments.
  • noun Anything serving as material for consumption or use.
  • noun A person fed or brought up; a person, as a child, under nurture; in an extended sense, any person; a creature.
  • noun Synonyms Provender, etc. (see feed, n.); sustenance, fare, cheer, viands.
  • noun An improper form of feud.
  • To feed; supply; figuratively, to soothe; flatter; entertain with promises.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To supply with food.
  • noun What is fed upon; that which goes to support life by being received within, and assimilated by, the organism of an animal or a plant; nutriment; aliment; especially, what is eaten by animals for nourishment.
  • noun Anything that instructs the intellect, excites the feelings, or molds habits of character; that which nourishes.
  • noun (Zoöl.) one of the spaces in the interior of a protozoan in which food is contained, during digestion.
  • noun (Biol.) See under Yolk.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable Any substance that is or can be consumed by living organisms, especially by eating, in order to sustain life.
  • noun uncountable, figuratively Anything intended to supply energy or nourishment of an entity or idea.
  • noun countable A foodstuff.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any substance that can be metabolized by an animal to give energy and build tissue
  • noun anything that provides mental stimulus for thinking
  • noun any solid substance (as opposed to liquid) that is used as a source of nourishment

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English fode, from Old English fōda; see pā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English fode, fude, from Old English fōda ("food"), from Proto-Germanic *fōdô (“food”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to guard, graze, feed”). Cognate with Scots fuid ("food"), Low German föde, vöde ("food"), Danish føde ("food"), Swedish föda ("food"), Icelandic fæða, fæði ("food"), Gothic 𐍆𐍉𐌳𐌴𐌹𐌽𐍃 (fōdeins, "food"), Latin pānis ("bread, food"), Latin pāscō ("feed, nourish", v). Related to fodder, foster.

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Examples

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  • i love food

    March 3, 2022

  • Is it requited?

    March 3, 2022