fodder
Americannoun
-
coarse food for livestock, composed of entire plants, including leaves, stalks, and grain, of such forages as corn and sorghum.
-
people considered as readily available and of little value.
cannon fodder.
-
raw material.
fodder for a comedian's routine.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
bulk feed for livestock, esp hay, straw, etc
-
raw experience or material
fodder for the imagination
verb
Related Words
See feed.
Etymology
Origin of fodder
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English fodder, fōdor; cognate with German Futter; akin to food
Explanation
Fodder is cheap food, usually given to livestock animals like cows. If you gave a cow caviar or homemade scones, that would not be fodder. Try cornstalks. Fodder is not just used to describe cattle feed. We use the word to talk about other kinds of feeding that don't involve actual food. A new celebrity marriage is fodder for gossip magazines. In war, the soldiers most likely to be killed, are called cannon fodder, from the times when armies used canons instead of drone aircraft dropping missiles.
Vocabulary lists containing fodder
Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Ender's Game
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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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.
They banked almost 500,000 seeds from 19 species, including relatives of lettuce, parsnip, strawberry, radish, quinoa, blackberry, alfalfa and several species used as fodder crops for livestock.
From BBC • Apr. 11, 2026
The novel partnership between students and police to break open a decades-old murder case, with a love triangle at its center, was irresistible fodder for the media’s true-crime boom.
From Slate • Apr. 6, 2026
Remember, the Revolutionary Guard was founded to provide cannon fodder during the Iraq-Iran War.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026
I get that side of it, and it’s fodder for comedy, for sure.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 9, 2026
He made three trips from the cabin to the fodder house.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
