food

food 1 Food, feed, victuals, viands, provisions, comestibles, provender, fodder, forage are comparable when meaning things that are edible for human beings or animals.

Food is the most general of these terms and is typically applicable to all substances which satisfy hunger and build up or repair waste in the body of men or animals

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conserve a nation's supply of food

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refrigerators that keep food fresh

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It is sometimes distinguished from drink

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there was no lack of food or drink during their sojourn on the island

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or applied specifically to human needs and then distinguished from feed, which normally denotes food for domestic animals

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he needed food for his family and feed for his livestock— Gustafson

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Victuals and viands basically denote food for human beings, especially food that is prepared and ready for eating.

Victuals is a racy or pungent word used for special effect

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I worked hard enough to earn my passage and my victuals— Shaw

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when I bear in mind how elegantly we eat our victuals —L. P. Smith

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Viands is bookish or affected and occurs chiefly where daintiness, rarity, or an especially fine quality is to be suggested

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all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast— Wilde

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he dashed the wine on the earth and scattered about the other viands— Milman

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Provisions applies to food in general as offered for sale in a market or kept in store as supplies

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a country store stocked with all sorts of staples and provisions

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there were not enough provisions in the hotel to care for the weekend influx of guests

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a basket of provisions

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Comestibles, which stresses edibility, is now found chiefly in playful use for victuals or provisions

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he resolved upon having a strong reinforcement of comestibles— Hook

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bills are also discussed, and butchers and groceries, and the price of comestibles— Rose Macaulay

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The remaining three terms, provender, fodder, and forage, basically denote feed for animals, but all may occasionally be used, typically derogatorily, of human food.

Provender in its basic use applies to food (as hay, oats, or corn) for horses, mules, or asses

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they must be dieted like mules and have their provender tied to their mouths— Shak.

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Fodder applies to food for domestic cattle and especially to coarse food (as hay, silage, and straw) that is harvested and fed out, as distinguished from forage, food consumed by grazing or browsing.

2 Food, aliment, pabulum, nutriment, nourishment, sustenance, pap are comparable especially when they denote material which feeds and supports the mind or the spirit.

Food is applicable to whatever is taken in and assimilated to enlarge the mind or spirit or to contribute to its vitality and growth

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praise was her favorite food— Phillpotts

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those books that provide food for the imagination

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Aliment and pabulum are not always distinguishable from each other, but aliment is more often applied to what nourishes or builds one's mind and nature

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mischief, love, and contradiction, are the natural aliments of a woman— Richardson

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the aliments nurturing our nobler part, the mind, thought, dreams, passions, and aims . . . at length are made our mind itself— Lytton

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and pabulum to something, and often something overrefined, bland, or worthless, which serves as an article or sometimes as the substance of one's mental diet

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many motion pictures provide poor pabulum for the adolescent mind

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where every man's hand is out for pabulum, and virile creativeness has given place to the patronizing favor of swollen bureaucracy— Vannevar Bush

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Nutriment and nourishment are both applied to what is needed for healthy growth (as of the body, the mind, or an institution)

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the central sources of the ideology, the abundant larder from which the nutriment of ideology is being drawn— A. A. Cohen

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self-esteem, one of the properties of the ego, is first regulated by the supply of nourishment from the outside— Blum

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but nourishment in addition suggests, as nutriment does not, the nourishing effect produced

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Professor Perry's conclusion: "The chief source of spiritual nourishment for any nation, must be its own past, perpetually rediscovered and renewed"— Time

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lacking the nourishment which enthusiasm or imagination can give, their writing is unlikely to be either robust or vivid— Gloag

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Sustenance stresses the supporting and maintaining rather than the upbuilding aspect of nutriment

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the blossoms of Beaumont and Fletcher's imagination draw no sustenance from the soil, but are cut and slightly withered flowers stuck into sand— T. S. Eliot

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Pap is found chiefly in contemptuous or ironical use and applies in its extended sense to nourishment that is as slight, as diluted, and as innocuous as soft bland food for an infant or invalid

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college courses that are mere intellectual pap

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a preacher whose sermons are nothing more than pap

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