Provender is food, especially dry fodder for animals. Lay in provender, provender for the horses, a store of provender.
The proper sense is dry feed — hay, oats, grain — as against grazing. Used of human food it is deliberately archaic and mildly jocular. The word comes from the same root as prebend, the allowance paid to a cathedral canon.
1nounprovenderFood, especially dry fodder for animals.
“The farmer made sure there was enough provender in the barn to feed the horses through winter.”
provender is food.
Old French provendre comes from Latin praebenda, an allowance to be provided, from praebere, to supply.
Old French
provendre
Middle English
provendre
English, today
provender
Built from
From Middle English provendre, from Old French provendre, variant of provende (“allowance, provision”), from Latin praebenda (“a payment, in Medieval Latin - also an allowance of food and drink, pittance, also a prebend”). a doublet of prebend.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA