feebly 
The fac-t is, that supernatural beings, as long as they 
are considered merely with reference to their own nature, 
excite our feelings very feebly. Macaulay, DanU*. 
feed (fed), v. ; pret. and pp. fed, ppr. feedimj. 
[< ME. feden (pret. fedde, fed, pp. fed; fedde), 
< AS. fedan (pret. fedde, pp. feded, fedd), feed, 
nourish, bring forth, produce (= OS. fodian = 
O Pries, feda, foda, Fries, fieden = D. voeden = 
LG. foden, voden, fo'den, juden = OHG./otw, 
MHG. viieten, viiten = Icel. fadha = Sw. /oda = 
Dan. fiide = Goth, fodjan, feed, give food to), < 
foda, food: see /ood.] I. trans. 1. To give 
food to ; supply with nourishment. 
He made lame to lepe and gaue ligte to blynde, 
Anil fedde with two flashes and witll fyue loues 
Sore afyngred folke mo than fyne thousande. 
Piers Plowman (B), xix. 122. 
If thine enemy hunger, feed him. Rom. xii. 20. 
Also while men are/ed with wine and bread, 
They shall be fed with sorrow at his hand. 
Swinburne, Two Dreams. 
2. To supply; fill the requirements of ; furnish 
material to for consumption, use, or means of 
operation ; provide with whatever is necessary 
to the development, maintenance, or working 
of: as, canals are fed by streams and ponds; 
to feed a fire, a steam-engine, or a threshing- 
machine ; to feed a lathe (by applying to the 
chisel the object to be turned) ; vanity is fed 
by flattery. 
I envy not thy glory, 
To feed my humour. SAajt., Rich. III.,iv. 1. 
"Whatever was created needs 
To be sustain'd and/ed; ol elements 
The grosser feeds the purer, earth the sea, 
Earth and the sea/eed air. Milton, P. L., v. 415. 
The small hand led 
To where a woman, gentle-eyed, 
Her distaff fed. 
Whittle?, Hermit of the Thebaid. 
For dyeing, the skins [glove-kid] are first washed out in 
warm water to free them from superfluous alum and then 
again fed with yolk of eggs and salt. 
Encyc. Brit., XIV. 389. 
3. To graze ; cause to be cropped by feeding, 
as herbage by cattle. 
Once in three years feed your mowing lands. 
Mortimer, Husbandry. 
The portion [of turnip-crop] to be fed off by sheep must 
necessarily be treated in a different manner. 
Encyc. Brit., I. 367. 
4. To supply for food, consumption, or opera- 
tion : as, to feed out beets to cattle ; to feed 
water to an engine ; to feed work (something to 
be operated on) to a lathe or other machine. 
In England, and in some parts of this country, turnips 
are/ed to sheep in the field. Amer. Cyc., XVI. 75. 
5t. To entertain; amuse. =Syn. 1. To nourish, 
cherish, sustain, support. 2. To contribute to. 
n. intrans. \. To take food; eat. [Now rare- 
ly used of persons except in contempt or dis- 
paragement.] 
In yourefedynge luke goodly yee be sene. 
Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 7. 
Then shall the lambs/eed after their manner. Isa. v. 17. 
To feed were best at home; 
From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony ; 
Meeting were bare without it. 
Shak., Macbeth, ill. 4. 
That he should breathe and walk, 
Feed with digestion, sleep, enjoy his health. 
B. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, i. 1. 
The cattle are grazing, 
Their heads never raising ; 
There are forty feeding like one ! 
Wordsworth, Written in March. 
2. To subsist; use something for sustenance 
or support: with on or upon. 
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow. 
Spenser, Mother Hub. Tale, 1. 900. 
Upon the earth's increase why shouldst than feed, 
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed ? 
Shak. . Venus and Adonis, 1. 169. 
3. To grow fat. [Prov. Eng. and Scotch.] 
feed (fed), n. [<feed,v.~] 1. Food, properly 
for domestic or other animals ; that which is 
eaten by a domestic animal; provender; fod- 
der. 
More dangerous 
Than baits to flsh, or honey-stalks to sheep ; 
When as the one is wounded with the bait, 
The other rotted with delicious feed. 
Shak., Tit. And., iv. 4. 
2|. Pasture-ground; grazing-land. 
His flocks, and bounds of feed, 
Are now on sale. Shak. , As you Like it, ii. 4. 
3. A meal, or the act of eating. [Archaic or 
low.] 
For such pleasure, till that hour, 
At feed or fountain, never had I found. 
Miltiiii, P. L., ix. 597. 
2169 
4. A certain allowance of provender given : as, 
a feed of corn or oats. 
From the middle of October till the end of May, my 
horses get one/eed of steamed food . . . daily. 
Quoted in Encyc. Brit., I. 386. 
5. In mecli. : (a) The motion or advance of any 
material which is being fed to a machine, as 
of cloth to the needle of a sewing-machine. (6) 
The material upon which a machine operates, 
as the grain running into a grinding-mill. (c) 
The advance of a cutting-tool, as the cutter of 
a planer, or the chisel of a lathe, upon or into 
the material to be cut. 6f. [Var. of food.] 
Same as/oodl, n., 4. 
Cum heir, cum heir, ye freely feed, 
And lay your head low on my knee. 
Kempion (Child's Ballads, I. 138). 
7. The amount of water needed in a canal-lock 
to allow of the passage of a boat. 8. In stone- 
sawing, sand and water employed to assist the 
saw-blade in cutting. 
To prevent the sand and water, called the feed, from 
flowing out between the stones, the interval is filled up 
with straw rammed in (Irmly between the two blocks. 
Byrne, Artisan's Handbook, p. 86. 
Differential feed, a device for securing a slow and pow- 
erful regular forward movement of a tool. =8yn. 1. Feed, 
Food, Fodder, Provender, Forage. Feed for animals, es- 
pecially animals kept for work or fattening for the mar- 
ket ; food for human beings and the smaller animals, house- 
hold pets, etc.; fodder, dry or green feed for animals, but 
not pasturage ; provender, dry feed. Forage is rarely used 
except for fodder furnished for horses in an army, gen- 
erally by foraging. Food is also a general word for that 
which supplies nourishment to any organized body. 
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, 
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food. 
Wordsworth, Guilt and Sorrow. 
The great cost of cattle, and the sickening of their cat- 
tle upon such wild fodder as was never cut before ; the 
loss of their sheep and swine by wolves, ... are the other 
disasters enumerated by the historian. 
Emerson, Hist. Discourse at Concord. 
Tita. Say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. 
Bot. Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your 
good dry oats. Shak., M. N. D., iv. 1. 
All oats, Indian corn, or rather forage that wagons or 
horses bring to the camp, ... . is to be taken for the use 
of the enemy. Franklin, Autobiog., p. 216. 
fee-farm 
wind depend solely upon the size and weighting .if thf 
latter. (/) In theat. cant, a subordinate role written to 
bring out the peculiarities of un important part. 
7. One who feeds a machine, as a printing- 
press: as, pressmen and feeders. Seefeeiliii;/. 
4. 8. In eutom., one of the organs composing 
the mouth-parts or trophi. Kirby. 
feed-hand (fed'hand), n. A rod by which in- 
termittent motion is imparted to a ratchet- 
wheel. E. H. Knit/lit. 
feed-head (fed'hed), . 1. A cistern of water 
placed above the boiler of a steam-engine and 
supplying it with water. 2. In casting, extra 
metal above the mold used to supply the waste 
caused by contraction in the mold ; a dead-head 
or head. Also called riser. 
feed-heater (fed'he"ter), n. 1. An apparatus 
for raising the temperature of the water sup- 
plied to a steam-boiler, either by the direct heat 
of the fire or indirectly by exposing it to the 
latent heat of the exhaust-steam from the en- 
gine. Such boilers are also designed to purify the feed- 
water by filtering out solid impurities, by precipitating 
lime or other materials that might form incrustations in 
the boiler, and by restraining oil and grease by means of 
absorbent filters. 
2. A boiler for cooking food for cattle, 
feeding (fe'ding), n. [Verbal n. of feed, v.] 1. 
The act of taking or giving food ; the act of 
eating or of giving to eat. 2. That which is 
eaten. 
Their moat feeding is flsh. Bokluyfs Voyages, I. 311. 
Contention, like a horse 
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose 
Shak., 2 Hen. IV., i. 1. 
3. That which furnishes food, especially for 
animals ; pasture-land. 
They call him Doricles ; and [he] boasts himself 
To have a worthy feeding. Shak., W. T., iv. 3. 
Finding the feeding, for which he had toil'd 
To have kept safe, by these vile cattle spoil'd. 
Drayton, Mooncalf. 
Meadows, Greens, Pastures, Feedings. 
Steele, Grief A-la-Mode, i. 1. 
feed-apron (fed'a // prun) ) n. In macli., an apron 
carrying material or feed to some part of a ma- 
chine. 
feeder (fe'der), n. 1. One who or that which 
feeds, or supplies food or nourishment. 
Swinish gluttony 
Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, 
But with besotted base ingratitude 
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder. 
Milton, Comus, 1. 779. 
The plant or animal on which a parasite lives is termed 
its host or feeder. De Bary, Fungi (trans.), p. 358. 
2. One who furnishes incentives; an encou- 
rager. 
Thou shalt be, as thou wast, 
The tutor and the feeder of my riots. 
Shak., 2 Hen. IV., v. 5. 
3. One who or an animal that eats or takes 
nourishment. 
The patch is kind enough ; but a huge feeder. 
Shak., M. of V., ii. 5. 
Bless'd he not both the feeder and the food? 
Quarles, Emblems, i. 1. 
Have your worms well scoured, and not kept in sour and 
musty moss, for he [the barbel] is a curious [fastidious] 
feeder. f. Walton, Complete Angler, p. 188. 
4f. A servant or dependent supported by his 
lord ; a parasite. 
I will your very f althf ul feeder be, 
And buy it with your gold right suddenly. 
Shak., As you Like it, ii. 4. 
Mr. Thornhill came with a couple of friends, his chap- 
lain and feeder. Goldsmith, Vicar, vii. 
5. One who fattens cattle for slaughter. 6. 
That which feeds or supplies; anything that 
serves for the conveyance of material or sup- 
plies to, or furnishes communication with, 
something else : as, great rivers are valuable 
feeders of commerce ; cross-roads and lanes are 
feeders to the highway. 
Dialects have always been the feeders rather than the 
channels of a literary language. 
Max Muter, Science of Language, p. 60. 
Specifically (a) A fountain, stream, or channel that sup. 
plies a main canal with water. (6) A branch or side rail- 
road running into and increasing the business of the main 
line, (c) In mining, a branch or spur falling into the main 
lode, and appearing to add to its width or richness ; a 
dropper, (d) Any device or contrivance for delivering to 
a machine the feed or materials to be operated upon, as 
the apron of a carder, the feed-wheel of a sewing-machine 
the feeding device of a saw-mill, rail-machine, grain-mill, 
etc. () In organ-building, a small oblique bellows placed 
under (occasionally apart from) the large horizontal stor- 
age-bellows, and used to furnish air to the latter The 
mechanical power is applied to the feeder, not to the bel- 
lows proper, though the steadiness and pressure of the 
4. In printing (press-work), the placing of sep- 
arate sheets of paper in position, so that they can 
be printed or ruled by a printing- or a ruling- 
machine. Also called, in England, laying-on. 
feeding-bottle (fe'ding-bof'l), n. A bottle for 
supplying milk or other liquid nutriment to an 
infant. 
feeding-engine (fe'ding-en"jin), n. An engine 
used to feed a boiler or other reservoir. 
feeding-ground (fe'ding-ground), n. A place 
where an animal resorts to feed : said of either 
sea or land, and often in the plural. 
feed-motion (fed'm6"shon), . In macli., the 
machinery that gives motion to the parts called 
the feed in machines. 
feed-pipe (fed'plp), n. In a steam-engine, the 
pipe leading from the feed-pump or from an 
elevated cistern to the bottom of the boiler. 
feed-pump (fed'pump), n. The force-pump em- 
ployed in supplying the boiler of a steam-en- 
gine with water. 
feed-rack (fed'rak), w. A rack or holder for 
hay, grain, or other food for cattle. 
feed-roll (fed'rol), n. In mach., any roller of 
which the function is to feed or supply to the 
mechanism the material to be operated upon, 
as, in a typewriter, a roll covered with india- 
rubber or other elastic material, which moves 
the paper as required, line by line. 
feed-screw (fed'skro), . A long screw used in 
large lathes to impart a regular feed-motion or 
advance to the tool-rest or to the work itself. 
feed-trough (f ed'trdf ), n. A trough in which is 
placed food for animals, especially for swine. 
[U. S.] 
feed-water (fed'wa/'ter), . Warmed water 
supplied to the boiler of a steam-engine by the 
feed-pump through the feed-pipe. 
It is very important that the feed water should be intro- 
duced into the boiler at as high a temperature as possible. 
B. Wilson, Steam Boilers, p. 118. 
fee-estate (fe'es-taf), n. In Eng. law, a tenure 
of lands or tenements for which some service or 
acknowledgment is paid to the chief lord, 
fee-farm (fe'farm), M. [< /2 + /am*. ] 1. 
Land held by one as tenant in fee of another, 
without homage, fealty, or other service, ex- 
cept that mentioned in the feoffment, usually 
the full rent. 
Fee farm, feodi flrma, or fee farm rent, is when the lord, 
upon the creation of the tenancy, reserves to himself and 
his heirs either the rent for which it was before let to 
farm, or was reasonably worth, or at least a fourth part 
of the value ; without homage, fealty, or other services 
beyond what are especially comprised in the feoffinrnt. 
S. Dowell, Taxes in England, I. 151, note. 
