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fodder

UK/ˈfɒdə/US/ˈfɑdɚ/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,439 of 15,258neutral

Fodder is food grown and stored for farm animals. Winter fodder, cut the fodder, a fodder crop.

It means the stored dry feed rather than what an animal grazes, and getting enough of it in before winter decided whether a herd survived, which shaped the whole farming year. Cannon fodder is a bitter phrase for soldiers spent without care.

Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of fodder

  1. 1nounfodderFood grown and stored for farm animals.B2+

    “The farmer stored hay and other fodder in the barn for the winter.”

fodder is animal feed.

Where it comes from

Old English fodor comes from the same root as food, from a Germanic word for feeding.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *peh₂- — to guard, graze, feed

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *fōdr

  3. English, today

    fodder

Built from

  • *fōdô · Proto-Germanic — food

From fodder, foder, from fōdor, from Proto-West Germanic fōdr, from fōdrą, from fōdô (“food”), from Proto-Indo-European peh₂- (“to guard, graze, feed”). Compare stq Fodder, West Frisian foer, Dutch voer (“pasture; fodder”), German Futter (“fodder; feed”), Danish foder, Swedish foder*. More at food.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Farm & Countryside

Practise this word

fodder in the wild

  • Cannon fodder is an informal, derogatory term for combatants who are regarded or treated by government or military command as expendable in the face of enemy fire.

    Cannon fodder

  • The term derives from fodder, as food for livestock.

    Cannon fodder

  • Vicia villosa, known as the hairy vetch, fodder vetch or winter vetch, is a plant native to some of Europe and western Asia.

    Vicia villosa

  • There are two basic types: fodder and forage.

    Animal feed

  • Used alone, the word feed more often refers to fodder.

    Animal feed

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.