fother

From Middle English fother, fothir, from Old Norse fóðr, but see Old English fōdor, from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (compare Dutch voer (“pasture, fodder”), German Futter (“feed”), Swedish foder), from fōda (“food”), from Proto-Indo-European *pat- 'to feed'. More at food.

fother (countable and uncountable, plural fothers)

1. (obsolete) A wagonload.
2. (obsolete) A load of any sort.
3. (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.
4. (dialectal) Alternative form of fodder, food for animals.
   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 2

     He ripp'd the womb up of his mother, / Dame Tellus, 'cause he wanted fother, / And provender, wherewith to feed / Himself and his less cruel steed.

• (unspecific amount): See cartload
• (specific amount): See load

• (cartload): See load

fother (third-person singular simple present fothers, present participle fothering, simple past and past participle fothered)

1. (dialectal) To feed animals (with fother).
2. (dated, nautical) To stop a leak with oakum or old rope (often by drawing a sail under the hull).

• forthe, therof

• foður, fothir, fothyr, futher, fodyr, fooder, foþer, foþere, foðer, voðer, ffoder

From Old Norse fóðr, from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą. Doublet of fodder.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfoːðər/

fother (plural fothres)

1. wagonload (that which fits in a wagon)
2. A wildly inconsistent measure of weight primarily used for lead.
3. A great quantity, especially a load or of people.

• English: fother

• “fọ̄ther (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-18.