feeder

From Middle English feedere, federe, fedare, equivalent to feed +‎ -er.

• Rhymes: -iːdə(r)

feeder (plural feeders)

1. One who feeds, or gives food to another.
   1. The participant in feederism who feeds the other (the feedee).
      • 2010, Niall Richardson, Transgressive Bodies:

        Often similes such as 'soft as velvet' or 'fluffy like a cloud' will be employed and the feeder will describe how he feels he can be lost in the enveloping folds of soft flesh.

2. One who feeds, or takes in food.
   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene v:

     The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,

     Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day

     More than the wild-cat; […]

   • 1871, George Miller Beard, Eating and Drinking

     There are many who are dietarians in theory, but liberal feeders in practice. They suppose or maintain that it is a duty to deny oneself of all luxuries at the table, but practically they take the best that they can get.

3. One who, or that which, feeds material into something.
   • 2007, Thomas E. Lightburn, The Shield and the Shark (page 173)

     When the claxon sounded they immediately stopped what they were doing and uncovered the Oerlikon. Paddy, who was ammunition feeder, stood by while Jock trained the 20mm gun around.

4. That which is used to feed.

   a bird feeder

5. A tributary stream, especially of a canal.
   • 1827, Conrad Malte-Brun, Universal Geography, or A Description of All the Parts of the World, on a New Plan, Edinburgh: Adam Black, volume 6, book 101, 285:

     The surface of the Balaton and the surrounding marshes is not less than 24 German square miles, or 384 English square miles; its principal feeder is the Szala, but all the water it receives appears inconsiderable relatively to its superficial extent, and the quantity lost in evaporation.

6. A branch line of a railway.
7. A transmission line that feeds the electricity for an electricity substation, or for a transmitter.
8. (education) A feeder school.
9. (shipbuilding, navigation) A feeder ship.
10. (US, law) A judge whose law clerks are often selected to become clerks for the Supreme Court.
11. (baseball, slang, archaic, 1800s) The pitcher.
12. (video games, derogatory) A player whose character is killed by the opposing player or team more than once, deliberately or through lack of skills and experience, thus helping the opposing side.
13. (obsolete) One who abets another.
14. (obsolete) A parasite.

• ferede, reefed, refeed

fee +‎ -der (compare Scottish Gaelic figheadair)

feeder m (genitive singular feeder, plural feederyn)

1. spider
2. weaver

• doo-oallee