pabulum

Noun

pabulum (countable and uncountable, plural pabula or pabulums)

1. Food or fodder, particularly that taken in by plants or animals.
   • Having for many years considered oil as the great pabulum of plants, I was much hurt by the result of some experiments, which state oil as poison; and turning this in my thoughts a thousand times over, it at last occurred to me, that though oil, as oil in its crude state, might act as a poison, yet...1803 September 1, C. Baldwin, “On Oil used as a Manure. By C. Baldwin, Esq. From Hunter’s Georgical Essays.”, in The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture. Consisting of Original...
   • Germinal matter, as far as is known, is structureless soft, transparent, colorless. It can be studied in the fungi and in the lowest form of animals in the amœba, and in mucus, pus and the white-blood corpuscles of the higher animals. Its properties, as we have seen, are living, growing, active...1880, C. S. Beck, “Cell Life”, in Transactions of the Pennsylvania State Dental Society, Lancaster, Pa.: Pearsol & Geist, printers, 22 South Queen-St, →OCLC, page 109
2. Material that feeds a fire.
   • […] But when we find that they [volcanoes] are but few in Number, and the chiefeſt of thoſe too near the torrid Zone, and from their Tops to iſſue forth, now clear Fire, then thick, black Smoke, and ſometimes little or nothing at all; we muſt conclude, that they are only particular Fires, probably...1727, Tobias Swinden, “The Improbability of Hell Fire’s Being in, or about the Center of the Earth”, in An Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell. [...] With a Supplement, wherein the Notions of...
   • [W]e know from experience, that the light of a candle, lamp, or fire depends on, and emanates from the flame of each; and we alſo knw that this flame is nouriſhed and ſuſtained by a pabulum or fuel, which is conſumed or waſted, according to the quantity of light that iſſues from the flame; and...1785, Felix O'Gallagher, “Lecture VIII. The Nature of the Sun and its Pabulum Investigated.”, in An Essay on the Investigation of the First Principles of Nature: Together with the Application thereof...

   Synonyms:

   fuel

3. (figuratively) Food for thought.
   • To comfort the desponding parent with the thought that, without diminishing the stock which is imperiously demanded to furnish the more pressing and homely wants of our nature, he has disposed of one or more perhaps out of a numerous offspring, under the shelter of a care scarce less tender than...1835, Charles Lamb, “Recollections of Christ’s Hospital”, in Essays of Elia, to which are Added Letters, and Rosamund, a Tale, Paris: Baudry's European Library, Rue du Coq, near the Louvre. [...]...
   • And with the eye of a bird seeking for minute fragmnts of seed, minute insects, tiny parasites, we also look for things that to us are the constituents of our mental or visual pabula.1905, Ford Hermann Hueffer, chapter 1, in The Soul of London: A Survey of a Modern City, London: Routledge, →OCLC, pages 16–19; republished in Rick Allen, The Moving Pageant: A Literary Sourcebook on...
4. (figuratively) Bland intellectual fare; an undemanding diet of words.
   • At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy ; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Silverside”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 300
   • But the rescheduling of the directors' meeting for 7.30 a.m., and the trotting-out of such tawdry pabulums?1998, Will Self, “A Story for Europe”, in Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 51

   Synonyms:

   pablum, pap