Provender
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Food, especially for livestock. dated, uncountable, usually
"The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise …"
- 2 a stock or supply of foods wordnet
- 3 food for domestic livestock wordnet
- 1 To feed. transitive
"One night, after several days of continuous plowing, and after the ox and mule had been stabled and provendered for the night, the ox said to the mule […]"
Example
More examples"And one of them opening his sack, to give his beast provender in the inn, saw the money in the sack's mouth, and said to his brethren: My money is given me again; behold it is in the sack. And they were astonished, and troubled, and said to one another: What is this that God hath done unto us?"
Etymology
From Middle English provendre, from Old French provendre, variant of provende (“allowance, provision”), from Late Latin praebenda (“a payment, in Medieval Latin also an allowance of food and drink, pittance, also a prebend”). Doublet of prebend.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.