Food

How to spell food

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce food

What does food mean?

1. nounAny substance that people or animals eat or drink to live and grow.

Food in a sentence

• The charity collects food for families in need.

• They spent most of their travel budget on food and lodging.

Where does food come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Food comes straight from Old English foda, which already meant nourishment or what one eats. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic root fodon, and beyond that to an ancient Indo-European root pa-, meaning to feed or to protect, the same source that gave Latin its words for pasture and feeding. The double 'o' spelling settled in over centuries to mark the long vowel sound, and the closely related verb 'feed' grew from the very same family, which is why the two words still feel like cousins. The old root also lies behind 'fodder', the feed given to animals, and 'foster', which originally meant to nourish or rear a child. Because the word is short, native, and phonetically regular, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• food (a single Old English root noun; no prefix or suffix)