Forms: 3 foþer, 4 foddre, 5–6 foder, 7–8 fother, 6– fodder. [f. prec. sb.; cf. MDu. and Du. voederen, OHG. fuotiren (MHG. vuotern, vüetern, Ger. füttern), ON. fóðra.] trans. To give fodder to (cattle); to feed with (something) as fodder. † In early use gen. To feed.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter, xxx[i]. 3. For þi name me lede and foþer [printed froþer: Vulg. enutries] þou sal.
1382. [see FODDERED ppl. a.].
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 89.
| Let us go foder | |
| Our mompyns. |
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 70. These beastes, horses and shepe, maye not be fodered to-gether in wynter, for thanne they wolde be seuered.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 73. Yow are neaver to beginn to fother sheepe soe longe as they can gette any thing on the grownde.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 172. Straw will do well enough to Fodder them with.
1773. Barker, in Phil. Trans., LXIII. 222. There was so little grass about London, that many were forced to fodder their cattle.
1832. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. V. (1863), 328. A lad in the employ of Farmer Mayne, who had gone thither for hay to fodder his cattle about an hour before the fire broke out.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v. Fodder.… ‘Fodder’d up,’ fed and bedded, as the stalled animals.
transf. and fig. 1659. H. More, Immort. Soul, III. xviii. § 12. Seneca mightily triumphs in this notion of foddering the Stars with the thick foggs of the Earth.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., VII. 40.
| Man, ill at ease, | |
| In this, not his own place, this foreign field, | |
| Where Nature fodders him with other food | |
| Than was ordain’d his cravings to suffice. |
1891. Daily News, 26 Jan., 6/3. They … fodder their souls on all kinds of stale and withered doctrinal herbage.
† b. To give cattle fodder upon (ground). Also To fodder on (ground), in indirect passive. Obs.
1655. [see FODDERING 1].
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort., May, 56. A place that has been well fother’d on.
1693. [see FODDERED ppl. a.].
Hence Foddered ppl. a.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Sam. xxviii. 24. A foddred [1388, fat] calf.
1692. Dryden, Cleomenes, III. ii. Cas. [rises.] Accurst be thou, Grass-eating fodder’d God!
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., Gloss., Fotherd Grounds, is ground upon which Cattel are fed upon in Winter, with Hay, &c. to better it.
1713. Young, A Poem on the Last Day, II. 255.
| A needless, helpless, unaccounted guest, | |
| And but a second to the fodder’d beast! |
