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Feed   /fid/   Listen
verb
Feed  v. t.  (past & past part. fed; pres. part. feeding)  
1.
To give food to; to supply with nourishment; to satisfy the physical huger of. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." "Unreasonable creatures feed their young."
2.
To satisfy; gratify or minister to, as any sense, talent, taste, or desire. "I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him." "Feeding him with the hope of liberty."
3.
To fill the wants of; to supply with that which is used or wasted; as, springs feed ponds; the hopper feeds the mill; to feed a furnace with coal.
4.
To nourish, in a general sense; to foster, strengthen, develop, and guard. "Thou shalt feed my people Israel." "Mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed."
5.
To graze; to cause to be cropped by feeding, as herbage by cattle; as, if grain is too forward in autumn, feed it with sheep. "Once in three years feed your mowing lands."
6.
To give for food, especially to animals; to furnish for consumption; as, to feed out turnips to the cows; to feed water to a steam boiler.
7.
(Mach.)
(a)
To supply (the material to be operated upon) to a machine; as, to feed paper to a printing press.
(b)
To produce progressive operation upon or with (as in wood and metal working machines, so that the work moves to the cutting tool, or the tool to the work).


Feed  v. i.  (past & past part. fed; pres. part. feeding)  
1.
To take food; to eat. "Her kid... which I afterwards killed because it would not feed."
2.
To subject by eating; to satisfy the appetite; to feed one's self (upon something); to prey; with on or upon. "Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon."
3.
To be nourished, strengthened, or satisfied, as if by food. "He feeds upon the cooling shade."
4.
To place cattle to feed; to pasture; to graze. "If a man... shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field."


noun
Feed  n.  
1.
That which is eaten; esp., food for beasts; fodder; pasture; hay; grain, ground or whole; as, the best feed for sheep.
2.
A grazing or pasture ground.
3.
An allowance of provender given to a horse, cow, etc.; a meal; as, a feed of corn or oats.
4.
A meal, or the act of eating. (R.) "For such pleasure till that hour At feed or fountain never had I found."
5.
The water supplied to steam boilers.
6.
(Mach.)
(a)
The motion, or act, of carrying forward the stuff to be operated upon, as cloth to the needle in a sewing machine; or of producing progressive operation upon any material or object in a machine, as, in a turning lathe, by moving the cutting tool along or in the work.
(b)
The supply of material to a machine, as water to a steam boiler, coal to a furnace, or grain to a run of stones.
(c)
The mechanism by which the action of feeding is produced; a feed motion.
Feed bag, a nose bag containing feed for a horse or mule.
Feed cloth, an apron for leading cotton, wool, or other fiber, into a machine, as for carding, etc.
Feed door, a door to a furnace, by which to supply coal.
Feed head.
(a)
A cistern for feeding water by gravity to a steam boiler.
(b)
(Founding) An excess of metal above a mold, which serves to render the casting more compact by its pressure; also called a riser, deadhead, or simply feed or head
Feed heater.
(a)
(Steam Engine) A vessel in which the feed water for the boiler is heated, usually by exhaust steam.
(b)
A boiler or kettle in which is heated food for stock.
Feed motion, or Feed gear (Mach.), the train of mechanism that gives motion to the part that directly produces the feed in a machine.
Feed pipe, a pipe for supplying the boiler of a steam engine, etc., with water.
Feed pump, a force pump for supplying water to a steam boiler, etc.
Feed regulator, a device for graduating the operation of a feeder.
Feed screw, in lathes, a long screw employed to impart a regular motion to a tool rest or tool, or to the work.
Feed water, water supplied to a steam boiler, etc.
Feed wheel (Mach.), a kind of feeder. See Feeder, n., 8.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Feed" Quotes from Famous Books



... unheeded, on her tawny skin. As oft she brought her food and flung it far, Reserving scarce a morsel for her need— Flung it—with naked arms, and streaming hair Floating like sea-weed on the tide of wind, Coal-black and lustreless—to feed the sea. But after each poor sacrifice, despair, Like the returning wave that bore it far, Rushed surging back upon her sickening heart; While evermore she moaned, low-voiced, between— Half-muttered and ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... there shall be no labouring men who are not thralls after their new fashion, that their lords shall be many and very many, it seemeth to me that these same lords, if they be many, shall hardly be rich, or but very few of them, since they must verily feed and clothe and house their thralls, so that that which they take from them, since it will have to be dealt out amongst many, will not be enough to make many rich; since out of one man ye may get but one ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... shows a perspective view of the machine, Fig. 2 a sectional elevation, and Fig. 3 a plan. In the ordinary screw gill box, the screws which traverse the gills are uniform in their pitch, so that a draught is only obtained between the feed rollers and the first gill, between the last gill of the first set and the first of the second, and between the last gill of the second set and the delivery roller. As thus arranged, the gills are really not active ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... road—round by Kilronan Abbey or by the Bridge of Keel. Many people said the southern road was shorter, but the difference wasn't more than a mile, if that, and Father Oliver preferred the northern road; for it took him by his curate's house, and he could always stop there and give his horse a feed and a rest; and he liked to revisit the abbey in which he had said Mass for so long, and in which Mass had always been said for a thousand years, even since Cromwell had unroofed it, the celebrant sheltered by an ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... near Odessa. The Dwina runs northward, seeking the icy Arctic, which it enters by way of the White Sea near Archangel. The Duena takes a westerly course towards the Gulf of Riga where it empties near the city of that name. Of greater importance are the small streams which feed Lakes Ladoga and Onega, because they connect Central Russia with the Baltic Sea by means of ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen


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