Definitions

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

  • noun A source of nourishment; food.
  • noun An agent that promotes growth or development.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That which nourishes; that which promotes the growth or repairs the natural waste of animal bodies, or which promotes the growth of vegetables; food; aliment; nourishment.
  • noun Figuratively, that which promotes development or improvement; pabulum.

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

  • noun That which nourishes; a nutrient; anything which promotes growth and repairs the natural waste of animal or vegetable life; food; aliment.
  • noun That which promotes development or growth.

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

  • noun A source of nourishment; food.
  • noun Something that promotes growth or development; a nutrient.

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

  • noun a source of materials to nourish the body

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Latin nūtrīmentum, from nūtrīre, to suckle; see (s)nāu- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • As a fair white lily grows up out of the bed of meadow muck, and without note or comment, rejects all in the soil that is alien from her being, and goes on fashioning her own silver cup side by side with weeds that are drawing coarser nutriment from the soil, so we often see a refined and gentle nature by some singular internal force unfolding itself by its own laws, and confirming itself in its own beliefs, as wholly different from all that surrounds it as is the lily from the rag-weed.

    Oldtown Folks 1869

  • They to whom Heaven declares its purpose must merit its communication by mortifying the senses; they have that within which requires not the superfluity of earthly nutriment, which is necessary to those who are without the sphere of the Vision.

    The Abbot 2008

  • For it is necessary that animals shall get nutriment from without; and, again, that this shall be converted into the ultimate nutriment, which is then distributed as sustenance to the various parts; this ultimate nutriment being, in sanguineous animals, what we call blood, and having, in bloodless animals, no definite name.

    On the Parts of Animals 2002

  • That is why taste also is a sort of touch; it is relative to nutriment, which is just tangible body; whereas sound, colour, and odour are innutritious, and further neither grow nor decay.

    On the Soul 2002

  • That is why taste also is a sort of touch; it is relative to nutriment, which is just tangible body; whereas sound, colour, and odour are innutritious, and further neither grow nor decay.

    ON THE SOUL Aristotle 1935

  • This does not, of course, mean 10 per cent. of the total weight nor 10 per cent. of the total bulk, but 10 per cent. of the total nutriment, that is, 10 calories of protein out of every 100 calories of food.

    How to Live Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science Eugene Lyman Fisk 1907

  • Croesus's kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, for she eats what comes from his table, and, being fed of one flesh, are they not brother and sister to one another in virtue of community of nutriment, which is but a thinly veiled travesty of descent?

    The Bed-Book of Happiness Harold Begbie 1900

  • Oats, oat-and-hay tea, milk, eggs -- anything which the stomach or rectum can be coaxed to take care of -- must be employed to give the nutriment, which is the only thing that will permanently strengthen the tissues; they must be strengthened in order to keep the capillaries at their proper caliber.

    Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877

  • In my view, a more reasonable, alternative view is that the Greek and subsequent Latin forms are from Hittite kalaktar meaning more generally 'nutriment'2 and have nothing to do with PIE at all.

    Archive 2010-03-01 2010

  • In my view, a more reasonable, alternative view is that the Greek and subsequent Latin forms are from Hittite kalaktar meaning more generally 'nutriment'2 and have nothing to do with PIE at all.

    Indo-European (*)*ǵalak- 'milk' 2010

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