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Sunday July 12, 2009

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provender [PROV-uhn-duhr]

noun

1. Food for domestic livestock, such as hay, straw, corn, oats, or a mixture of ground grain; feed.
2. A stock or supply of foods.

• His and Waters' search for exquisite ingredients for his flights of fancy fostered, in a roundabout way, what became the Chez Panisse credo of using only the freshest, most sustainably and locally produced seasonal provender.
  Karola Saekel, "Chez Panisse's unrivaled saga brought to life", San Francisco Chronicle, Apr 6, 2007
• Nature's rich and varied larder also provided meat for holiday tables. This was a time when deer and wild turkeys were as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth, but rabbits, squirrels, grouse and quail provided plentiful, highly palatable provender.
  Jim Casada, "Christmas musings and memories", Herald, Dec 18, 2005
• The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger, and immediately afterwards shook down a quantity of dried fern in the corner which he had assigned for the rider's couch.
  Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832) A prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet. Ivanhoe (1819)

Origin of the Word

Provender, approximately 1306, derives from Old French provendir, from Late Latin prebenda "allowance, subsistence," from Latin prebenda "(things) to be furnished, from pre- "before" + habere "to hold".