bottle-feed

American

[bot-l-feed] / ˈbɒt lˌfid /

verb (used with object)

bottle-fed, bottle-feeding

to nurse or feed (an infant or young animal) with milk or other nourishment from a nursing bottle.
to nurture or teach with exaggerated care.

We had to bottle-feed the new salesman on how to make door-to-door calls.

verb (used without object)

bottle-fed, bottle-feeding

to feed an infant or young animal from a nursing bottle.

bottle-feed British

verb

to feed (a baby) with milk from a bottle instead of breast-feeding

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of bottle-feed

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In an email, Mike Ridgway, the child’s father, said he had given Ramirez “space to both nurse and to pump milk for me to bottle-feed our daughter while she is in my care.”

From Washington Post • Feb. 1, 2023

Or bottle-feed a joey on Australia’s Kangaroo Island?

From New York Times • Jan. 12, 2023

Domingo-Garcia’s story went viral shortly after ICE raided her poultry plant, when it was reported that her breastfeeding four-month old daughter was struggling to learn to bottle-feed.

From Slate • Oct. 12, 2021

MeoowzResQ agreed to foster and bottle-feed the puppies, authorities said.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2019

Over coffee they shiver: they themselves are fastidious, they will bottle-feed, which is anyway more sanitary.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023