Fother

Origin

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.

Full definition of fother

Noun

1. (obsolete) a wagonload; a load of any sort.
2. an old English measure of lead or other metals, usually containing 19.5 hundredweight; a fodder.
• 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.
3. (dialect) Food for animals.
• 1663, Hudibras, by , part 1,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.
4. Alternative form of fodder (unit of weight)

Verb

1. (dialect) 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).

Anagrams

• therof