feed

Etymology 1

From Middle English feden, from Old English fēdan (“to feed”), from Proto-West Germanic *fōdijan, from Proto-Germanic *fōdijaną (“to feed”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to guard, graze, feed”). Cognate with West Frisian fiede (“to nourish, feed”), Dutch voeden (“to feed”), Danish føde (“to bring forth, feed”), Swedish föda (“to bring forth, feed”), Icelandic fæða (“to feed”), and more distantly with Latin pāscō (“feed, nourish”, verb) through Indo-European. More at food, fodder.

verb

1. (transitive) To give (someone or something) food to eat.
   Feed the dog every evening.
2. (intransitive) To eat (usually of animals).
   Spiders feed on gnats and flies.
   While feeding, the basking shark swims at about two knots per hour, and this enables it to eat and breathe in the same motion. 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, page 89
3. (ditransitive) To give (someone or something) to (someone or something else) as food.
   Feed the fish to the dolphins.
   DR SIMEON: I said I'd feed you. I didn't say who to. 2012 December 25 (airdate), Steven Moffat, The Snowmen (Doctor Who)
4. (transitive) To give to a machine to be processed.
   Feed the paper gently into the document shredder.
   We got interesting results after feeding the computer with the new data.
5. (figurative) To satisfy, gratify, or minister to (a sense, taste, desire, etc.).
6. To supply with something.
   Springs feed ponds with water.
7. To graze; to cause to be cropped by feeding, as herbage by cattle.
   If grain is too forward in autumn, feed it with sheep.
8. (sports, transitive) To pass to.
   Morrison then played a pivotal role in West Brom's equaliser, powering through the middle and feeding Tchoyi, whose low, teasing right-wing cross was poked in by Thomas at the far post December 28, 2010, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1-3 Blackburn”, in BBC
9. (phonology, of a phonological rule) To create the environment where another phonological rule can apply; to be applied before another rule.
   Nasalization feeds raising.
10. (syntax, of a syntactic rule) To create the syntactic environment in which another syntactic rule is applied; to be applied before another syntactic rule.
    This orthodox analysis […] leads to the conclusion that […] Subject–Auxiliary Inversion (SAI) is fed by the contraction operation. 1983, Arnold M. Zwicky, Geoffrey K. Pullum, “Cliticization vs. Inflection: English N'T”, in Language, volume 59, number 3, →JSTOR, page 506

Etymology 2

From Middle English fede, fed, from the verb (see above).

noun

1. (uncountable) Food given to (especially herbivorous) non-human animals.
   Coordinate term: fodder
   They sell feed, riding helmets, and everything else for horses.
2. Something supplied continuously.
   a satellite feed
3. The part of a machine that supplies the material to be operated upon.
   the paper feed of a printer
4. The forward motion of the material fed into a machine.
5. (UK, Australia, New Zealand, colloquial, countable) A meal.
   184?, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor One proposed going to Hungerford-market to do a feed on decayed shrimps or other offal laying about the market; another proposed going to Covent-garden to do a 'tightener' of rotten oranges, to which I was humorously invited; […]
   "There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at restaurants." 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 257
6. (countable) A gathering to eat, especially in large quantities.
   They held a crab feed on the beach.
7. (Internet) Encapsulated online content, such as news or a blog, that can be subscribed to.
   I've subscribed to the feeds of my favourite blogs, so I can find out when new posts are added without having to visit those sites.
   Refresh the top of your various “feeds” — the running column of content on some versions of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — and you will see the latest news at the top. The further back you scroll, the older the material gets. 2016-03-15, Mike Isaac, “Instagram May Change Your Feed, Personalizing It With an Algorithm”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   Despite spending years studying these toxic dynamics and the better part of a month watching them up close in strangers’ feeds, I was still, like so many, surprised to see it all reflected at the ballot box. We shouldn’t have been surprised; our divisions have been in front of our faces and inside our feeds this whole time. 2020-11-24, Charlie Warzel, “What Facebook Fed the Baby Boomers”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
8. A straight man who delivers lines to the comedian during a performance.
   Don Ward is often described as a former comic, having some experience in this area as a young man, acting as a feed for the comic actor David Lodge at Parkins Holiday Camp in Jersey […] 2020, Oliver Double, Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up, page 38

Etymology 3

From fee + -ed.

verb

1. simple past and past participle of fee