fother
UK/ˈfɒðə/US/ˈfɑðɚ/
fother noun: a load, a wagonload, especially any various English units of weight or volume based upon standardized cartloads of certain commodities. Also the alternative form of fodder.
Noun
fother (countable and uncountable, plural fothers)
- A load, a wagonload, especially any various English units of weight or volume based upon standardized cartloads of certain commodities.
- Four fother of clod lime, and fifteen fothers of good manure, on each acre.1774-75, Act 14 Geo. III in Brand, Newcastle (1789) I, page 652
- 20 fothers of additional thickness in clay were thrown in.1813, “Misc.”, in Ann. Reg., 507/2
Verb
fother (third-person singular simple present fothers, present participle fothering, simple past and past participle fothered)
- To feed animals (with fother).
- To stop a leak with oakum or old rope (often by drawing a sail under the hull).
Also used as
fother is also the alternative form of fodder.
Examples of fother in a sentence
- Where the brass hez a' cum fra nebody can tell, / Some says yen thing and some says another - / But whe ever lent Grainger't aw knaw very well, / That they mun have at least had a fother.1840, Tyne songster, The Tyne songster, a choice selection of songs in the Newcastle dialect, page 211:
- 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.1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 168:
Synonyms of fother
Forms of fother
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | fothers |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | fothers |
| present participle | fothering |
| past participle | fothered |
| past | fothered |
Origin of fother
From Middle English fother, fothir, from Old Norse fóðr (cognate to Old English fōdor), from Proto-Germanic *fōdrą (compare Dutch voer (“pasture, fodder”), German Futter (“feed”), Swedish foder). Doublet of fodder and foeder. More at food.
Questions about fother
- What does fother mean?
- Fother means a load, a wagonload, especially any various English units of weight or volume based upon standardized cartloads of certain commodities.
- How do you use fother in a sentence?
- Where the brass hez a' cum fra nebody can tell, / Some says yen thing and some says another - / But whe ever lent Grainger't aw knaw very well, / That they mun have at least had a fother.
- What part of speech is fother?
- Fother can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce fother?
- Fother is pronounced /ˈfɒðə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of fother?
- The plural of fother is fothers.
Words near fother in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fother (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “fother.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fother. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.