Feeder

How to spell feeder

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce feeder

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does feeder mean?

1. nounA container or device that holds and dispenses food, especially for birds or animals.
2. nounA smaller route, channel, or line that supplies or connects into a larger system.

Feeder in a sentence

• She hung a bird feeder outside the kitchen window.

• The village relies on a single feeder road that joins the motorway.

• The automatic feeder released pellets into the fish tank each morning.

• An electrical feeder carries power from the substation to each building.

Where does feeder come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the native English verb 'feed', which comes from Old English 'fedan', meaning 'to give food to' or 'to nourish'. That verb descends from a Proto-Germanic root 'fodjan', closely tied to 'food' and 'fodder', all sharing the sense of sustenance. The agent suffix '-er', also of Germanic stock, turns a verb into the person, animal, or device that performs the action, so a 'feeder' is literally 'one that feeds' or 'a thing used for feeding'. By the 1400s the word named both creatures that eat and people who supply food, and over the centuries it extended naturally to mechanical and structural senses, such as a container that dispenses feed or a smaller line that supplies a larger one. The spelling is regular and phonetic, doubling nothing and simply stacking '-er' onto 'feed', which is why most adults find it straightforward.

How the word is built

• feed (to give food)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)