feed: Meaning and Definition of

feed

Pronunciation: (fēd), [key]
— v., n. fed, feed•ing,
—v.t.
  1. to give food to; supply with nourishment: to feed a child.
  2. to yield or serve as food for: This land has fed 10 generations.
  3. to provide as food.
  4. to furnish for consumption.
  5. to satisfy; minister to; gratify: Poetry feeds the imagination.
  6. to supply for maintenance or operation, as to a machine: to feed paper into a photocopier.
  7. to provide with the necessary materials for development, maintenance, or operation: to feed a printing press with paper.
  8. to use (land) as pasture.
  9. Stand in the wings and feed them their lines.
    1. to supply (an actor, esp. a comedian) with lines or action, the responses to which are expected to elicit laughter.
    2. to provide cues to (an actor).
    3. Chiefly Brit.to prompt:Stand in the wings and feed them their lines.
  10. to distribute (a local broadcast) via satellite or network.
—v.i.
  1. (esp. of animals) to take food; eat: cows feeding in a meadow; to feed well.
  2. to be nourished or gratified; subsist: to feed on grass; to feed on thoughts of revenge.
  3. to pass (work) successively into a machine in such a manner that each new piece is held in place by or connected to the one before.
—n.
  1. food, esp. for farm animals, as cattle, horses or chickens.
  2. an allowance, portion, or supply of such food.
  3. a meal, esp. a lavish one.
  4. the act of feeding.
  5. the act or process of feeding a furnace, machine, etc.
  6. the material, or the amount of it, so fed or supplied.
  7. a feeding mechanism.
  8. feeder (def. 10).
    1. a line spoken by one actor, the response to which by another actor is expected to cause laughter.
    2. an actor, esp. a straight man, who provides such lines.
  9. a local television broadcast distributed by satellite or network to a much wider audience, esp. nationwide or international.
    1. reluctant to eat; without appetite.
    2. dejected; sad.
    3. not well; ill.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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