Definition of "feed" in 英语

verb

1. (transitive) To give (someone or something) food to eat.

   • Feed the dog every evening.

2. (intransitive) To eat (usually of animals).

   • Spiders feed on gnats and flies.

3. (ditransitive) To give (someone or something) to (someone or something else) as food.

   • Don't feed him too much; he's still a baby.
   • Feed the fish to the dolphins.
   • DR SIMEON: I said I'd feed you. I didn't say who to.

4. (transitive) To give to a machine to be processed.

   • Feed the paper gently into the document shredder.

5. (transitive) To supply (a machine) with something to be processed.

   • We got interesting results after feeding the computer with the new data.

6. (transitive, figurative) To satisfy, gratify, or minister to (a sense, taste, desire, etc.).

7. (transitive) To supply with something.

   • Springs feed ponds with water.

8. (transitive) To graze; to cause to be cropped by feeding, as herbage by cattle.

   • If grain is too forward in autumn, feed it with sheep.

9. (transitive, sports) To pass to.

10. (transitive, phonology, of a phonological rule) To create the environment where another phonological rule can apply; to be applied before (another rule).

    • Nasalization feeds raising.

11. (transitive, syntax, of a syntactic rule) To create the syntactic environment in which another syntactic rule is applied; to be applied before (another syntactic rule).

noun

1. (uncountable) Food given to (especially herbivorous) non-human animals.

   • They sell feed, riding helmets, and everything else for horses.

2. Something supplied continuously.

   • a satellite feed

3. The part of a machine that supplies the material to be operated upon.

   • the paper feed of a printer

4. The forward motion of the material fed into a machine.

5. (UK, Australia, New Zealand, colloquial, countable) A meal.

   • 184?, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor One proposed going to Hungerford-market to do a feed on decayed shrimps or other offal laying about the market; another proposed going to Covent-garden to do a 'tightener' of rotten oranges, to which I was humorously invited; […]