Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Feed for livestock, especially coarsely chopped hay or straw.
- n. Raw material, as for artistic creation.
- n. A consumable, often inferior item or resource that is in demand and usually abundant supply: romantic novels intended as fodder for the pulp fiction market.
- v. To feed with fodder.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Food for cattle, horses, and sheep, as hay, straw, and other kinds of vegetables. The word is usually confined to food that grows above ground and is fed in bulk.
- n. Synonyms See feed, n.
- To feed with dry food or cut grass, etc.; supply with hay, straw, etc.: as, farmers fodder their cattle twice or thrice in a day.
- To graze, as cattle.
- n. A variant of fother.
Wiktionary
- n. Food for animals.
- n. A weight by which lead and some other metals were formerly sold, in England, varying from 19 1/2 to 24 cwt (993 to 1222 kg).; a fodder.
- n. slang, drafting, design Tracing paper.
- n. figuratively Something which serves as inspiration or encouragement, especially for satire or humour.
- v. dialect To feed animals (with fodder).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete A weight by which lead and some other metals were formerly sold, in England, varying from 191/2 to 24 cwt.; a fother.
- n. That which is fed out to cattle horses, and sheep, as hay, cornstalks, vegetables, etc.
- v. To feed, as cattle, with dry food or cut grass, etc.; to furnish with hay, straw, oats, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- v. give fodder (to domesticated animals)
- n. coarse food (especially for livestock) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop
- n. soldiers who are regarded as expendable in the face of artillery fire
Etymologies
- Old English fōdor, from Proto-Germanic *fōdran (compare Dutch voer 'pasture, fodder', German Futter 'feed', Swedish foder), from *fōda 'food', from Proto-Indo-European *pat- 'to feed'. More at food. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English fōdor; see pā- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In the fall corn was gathered, first by topping it and the tops were then used in making what they called a fodder house, by sticking crotches in the ground and covering with stalks, often being forty rods in length, then the corn was taken off and thrown into piles, shucks all on.”
“Hay is scarcely ever used in this part of the country, but, in place of it, the inhabitants feed their cattle with what they call fodder, the leaves of the Indian corn-plant.”
“Obviously you gents don't realize that we have both summer and winter runs that you can fish for in lots of little creeks that flow directly to the ocean ... lots of log jams, underbrush and yes you can really crush em on a slinky and glo bug ... but what this fodder is about is really transplanted steelhead that have lost any inkling to their genetic strain and are a fine game fish at that.”
“I doubt they'd call it "determination to remain fodder," but there are certainly self-fulfilling negative prophecies at work.”
“Will this session be the one where we charted a definitive new course and returned to our proud roots as the Land of Lincoln - or did we squander the opportunity and thereby remain fodder for Saturday Night Live's next popular skit?”
“Exactly we are cannon fodder (maybe coffin fodder) to them … walking wallets to drain and ditch.”
Think Progress » As Democrats Get Tough On Financial Reform, Republicans Court Big Banks
“The key to finding good humor fodder is that the story must be NEARLY funny without being completely funny on its own.”
“Presumably it made the crossing in fodder or bedding for domestic animals.”
The first new European mammal in 100 years? You must be joking
“This is a conversation hubby and I need to have again. .thanks for the brain fodder! gingajoy Said,”
“Fodder production per harvest and long-term fodder production both increase when the first harvest is delayed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fodder’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Beer and Brewing
Words about beer and the making of it.
airlock, bung, carboy, diversol, hops, mashtun, beer, sparge, trub, wort, malt, malt liquor and 184 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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cgrimm's list
Words I like or find interesting
boondoggle, kerfuffel, schadenfreude, possierlich, vendor, skidaddle, apfelsine, fodder, scapegrace, die tarnung, tarnkappe, shampoo and 16 more...
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FYI
deus ex machina, cantatrice, tartarean, fowl, fodder, bridle, glut, exultation, remuneration, satiation, allotropy, chthonic and 4 more...
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ecbatic's list
woofits, concierge, winsome, garish, cognate, peevish, oodles, undulate, fodder, nonpareil, reticulated, gabulous and 13 more...
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English Weights and Measures
Most of these are names of weights and measures in use before 1500, gleaned from household accounts of English estates and colleges.
pondus, clove, wey, charrus, pisa, sum, seam, petra, fatt, peck, quarter, skep and 49 more...
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Ugliest Sounding Words
List words that sound ugly, regardless of meaning
kumquat, milk, meal, jizz, bubonic, fester, goulash, sasquatch, carbuncle, sieve, onomatopoeia, burlesque and 29 more...
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Favorite Words
symbologist, articulate, sushi, chinchilla, flagrant, cosmic, perforate, alacrity, gooseflesh, xenophobic, bamboozle, squirrel and 90 more...
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mager's Words
enigmatic, pragmatic, pulchritudinous, nincompoop, annihilation, sociality, entailment, acrosome, egalitarian, culture, technocracy, shenanigan and 541 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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sillygoose's Words
nefarious, waffle, dilettante, love, obstreperous, suggestible, fodder, plucky, trajectory, eclectic, juggernaut, demure and 115 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, F
felony, frolic, fend, fuselage, farthingale, freewheeling, frigorific, flummery, fancypants, felsitic, flagstone, flageolet and 295 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fodder.

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