Pablum

//ˈpæbləm// name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A type of cereal for infants made from cornmeal, oat, and wheat. US, uncountable

    "Now your baby is even luckier! He'll enjoy new flavor variety with four Pablum cereals— […] They're all equally good for Baby—all based on the original Pablum formula. […] Remember—Pablum is the world's first precooked vitamin and mineral enriched cereal, and doctors have prescribed it for almost twenty years."

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative letter-case form of Pablum (“a type of cereal for infants made from cornmeal, oat, and wheat”). US, alt-of, uncountable, usually
  2. 2
    worthless or oversimplified ideas wordnet
  3. 3
    Mushy, easily digested food; pap; (countable) a specific type of such food. US, broadly, uncountable, usually

    "The juice from its hydro-power dam was needed to supply meager light to a million homes and to cook the pablum for two million brand-new babies."

  4. 4
    a soft form of cereal for infants wordnet
  5. 5
    Something overly bland or simplistic, especially speech or writing. US, countable, derogatory, figuratively, uncountable, usually

    ""If you want to be filled with pablum and tranquilizers," [Robert F.] Kennedy told crowds, "then don’t vote for me. I'm not going to give you any tired answers. […] I'm going to tell it like it is.""

Etymology

Etymology 1

A variant of Pablum, the name of a food supplement for malnourished infants developed in 1931 by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Mead Johnson & Company, probably a shortening of Latin pābulum (“fodder for animals; food, nourishment”), from pā(scō) (“to feed, nourish; to drive to pasture; to support; to tend”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, ward; to shepherd”)) + -bulum (suffix denoting an instrument) (from Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom (a variant of *-trom (suffix denoting an instrument or tool))), or directly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-dʰlom (from *peh₂- + *-dʰlom). The name was trademarked in the United States in 1932.

Etymology 2

The name of a food supplement for malnourished infants developed in 1931 by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Mead Johnson & Company, probably a shortening of Latin pābulum (“fodder for animals; food, nourishment”), from pā(scō) (“to feed, nourish; to drive to pasture; to support; to tend”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, ward; to shepherd”)) + -bulum (suffix denoting an instrument) (from Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom (a variant of *-trom (suffix denoting an instrument or tool))), or directly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-dʰlom (from *peh₂- + *-dʰlom). The name was trademarked in the United States in 1932.

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