Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A substance that gives nourishment; food.
- n. Insipid intellectual nourishment: "TV . . . gobbled up comedy material and spat it out as pabulum” ( Richard Corliss).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Food, in the widest sense; aliment; nutriment; that which nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; by extension, that which nourishes or supports any physical process, as fuel for a fire.
- n. Hence, food for thought; intellectual or spiritual nourishment or support.
Wiktionary
- n. food or fodder, particularly that taken in by plants or animals.
- n. material that feeds a fire.
- n. figuratively food for thought.
- n. bland intellectual fare; an undemanding diet of words.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The means of nutriment to animals or plants; food; nourishment.
- n. That which feeds or sustains, such as fuel for a fire that upon which the mind or soul is nourished; intellectual sustenance.
- n. Trite or simplistic writing, sentiments, etc.; pablum{3}.
WordNet 3.0
- n. insipid intellectual nourishment
- n. any substance that can be used as food
Etymologies
- From Latin pābulum ("food, nourishment"), from pāscō ("I feed, nourish"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin pābulum; see pā- in Indo-European roots. Sense 2, by confusion with pablum. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“They supposed that the air contained a principle proper for the support and nourishment of life, which they called pabulum vitae.”
Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease
“The "pabulum" to which Christie was referring: O'Malley's comments on a recent radio show in which he said Christie's brand of pension reform showed that the New Jersey Republican "delights in being abusive towards public employees.”
The Washington Post: A day later, O'Malley hits back against N.J.'s Christie
“An architect of the White House's earlier policies dismissed Mr. Bellinger's remarks as "pabulum" from a State Department that is too solicitous of international institutions.”
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Accepts International Criminal Court
“Two weeks ago, the EPA had to omit the entire global-warming section from its "Draft Report on the Environment," a 30-year statistical snapshot of the U.S. environment, after the administration tried to replace solid findings with "pabulum," according to outgoing EPA administrator Christie Whitman.”
“Family fare with good characters that bounce between pabulum and tears?”
The Huffington Post: Lorraine Devon Wilke: How The Killing Is Saving Television
“Though its once-scandalous content nowadays can't compete with the pabulum of reality TV, the production, in the hands of Daavid and his talented cast, successfully examines a chain reaction that begins with five rooms of furniture being hauled away for non-payment.”
“Whether what my wife – who likewise had had no exposure to television for years before I met her – and I watched was better or worse than the average that was on offer to viewers, we could not say; but it seemed terrible pabulum to us, having approximately the same effect on our consciousness as a food-mixer on vegetables.”
“NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left.”
The Huffington Post: NPR's Juan Williams Firing Prompts Conservative Backlash
“Just as commercial pabulum reduces all of us the creator, the "producer," the viewer to the status of consumer slaves, so dramatic art raises the creators and the viewers to the status of communicants.”
“She also lampoons the pabulum of business motivational books and the pieties of CEO memoirs in a book that is consistently funny in its stomach-turning way.”
The Wall Street Journal: From Medea on the Bayou to Shenanigans in the Office
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pabulum’.
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POL - presidential debates
Some of the catchwords of several presidential debates (Obama-Romney 2012 Denver debate's transcript fully included)
autistic, skyrocket, enroll, taxing, decamp, Depression, niceness, cutback, revenue, fend for, empathy, uninsured and 150 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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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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perfectly plosive p's
positively p's, please!
penultimate, perdurable, proscenium, pysmatic, petaliferous, pogoniasis, pyx, palimpsest, pareidolia, perspicuous, pauciloquy, pococurante and 14 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 476 more...
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kimo2000's Words
pakalolo, miliated, voodoo, vindaloo, hacienda, acquiesce, addlepated, olio, akimbo, apropos, oogenesis, arugula and 181 more...
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Words to Try to Use in Colloquial Spe...
surquedry, equivocate, putative, turgid, congeries, irrefragable, quiddity, zaftig, flagitious, bloviate, perfidy, compendious and 227 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 1: Less Common
These are words that I have learnt over the years and want to remember
epithalamium, hustings, verger, atheling, moue, pendulous, pendragon, funicular, pericope, fettle, eleemosynary, moot and 160 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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madamepsychosis's Words
mollify, salubrious, prandial, coup de grace, ineluctable, metempsychosis, pedant, conatus, oeuvre, laconic, solipsism, vapid and 265 more...
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My Words
heuristic, malapropism, vicissitude, discursive, interstitial, velleity, phosphene, pandiculate, obdormition, vertiginous, flibbertigibbet, truculent and 128 more...
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p is for...
my favorite voiceless bilabial plosive.
panacea, persnickety, panache, provenance, preternatural, penumbra, perfunctory, perspicacity, potentate, pinguid, plainsong, pleonastic and 228 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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drseatbelt's Words
bilious, centenarian, droll, palliative, cortege, stultify, polysemy, suffuse, lambent, timorous, aegis, modicum and 236 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pabulum.

reesetee Same thing, different spelling. May 14, 2010
chained_bear Similar to pablum? May 11, 2010