fother
See also: foþer
English
Etymology
From Middle English fother, fothir, from Old Norse fóðr (cognate to Old English fōdor), from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (compare Dutch voer (“pasture, fodder”), German Futter (“feed”), Swedish foder). Doublet of fodder. More at food.
Noun
fother (countable and uncountable, plural fothers)
- (obsolete) A wagonload.
- (obsolete) A load of any sort.
- (historical) A load: various English units of weight or volume based upon standardized cartloads of certain commodities.
- 1866: Now measured by the old hundred, that is, 108 lbs. the charrus contains nearly 19½ hundreds, that is it corresponds to the fodder, or fother, of modern times. —James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 168.
- (dialect) Alternative form of fodder, food for animals.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
- (cartload): See load
Verb
fother (third-person singular simple present fothers, present participle fothering, simple past and past participle fothered)
- (dialect) To feed animals (with fother).
- (dated, nautical) To stop a leak with oakum or old rope (often by drawing a sail under the hull).
Anagrams
Middle English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Old Norse fóðr, from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą. Doublet of fodder.
Pronunciation
Noun
fother (plural fothres)
- wagonload (that which fits in a wagon)
- A wildly inconsistent measure of weight primarily used for lead.
- A great quantity, especially a load or of people.
Descendants
References
- “fọ̄ther (n.)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-18.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms borrowed from Old Norse
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English doublets
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English terms with historical senses
- English dialectal terms
- English verbs
- English dated terms
- en:Nautical
- Middle English terms borrowed from Old Norse
- Middle English terms derived from Old Norse
- Middle English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English doublets
- Middle English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- enm:Units of measure