diet

plural diets · alternative dated rare diët · alternative obsolete diate

1. The food and beverage a person or animal consumes.

   The diet of the giant panda consists mainly of bamboo.

   1 more example

   It is common policy to order no more diet than will be used within one month.

   2013, Martin D Buckland, Lynda Hall, Alan Mowlem, A Guide to Laboratory Animal Technology, page 56

2. countableA controlled regimen of food and drink choices, as to gain or lose weight or otherwise influence health.

   The doctor put me on a low-salt diet.

   2 more examples

   He's been on a diet since he found out that he has coronary atherosclerosis.

   My jeans are too tight, so I'm going on a diet.

3. broadlyAny habitual intake or consumption.

   He's been reading a steady diet of nonfiction for the last several years.

   1 more example

   Last week the aging video game retailer emerged as the hottest stock on Wall Street, a story just unexpected and absurd enough to fill the new Trump-shaped void in our nation’s media diet.

   2021 February 3, Farhad Manjoo, “Can We Please Stop Talking About Stocks, Please?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

alternative dated rare diët · alternative obsolete diate

1. not comparableContaining less fat, salt, sugar, or calories than normal, or claimed to have such.

   diet soda

   3 more examples

   Many grocery chains offer premium-priced lean or diet hamburger; but the fat content is usually at least 10 percent, sometimes 15 percent or more.

   1982, Consumer Guide, Dieter's Complete Guide to Calories, Carbohydrates, Sodiums, Fats & Cholesterol, page 18

   The difference in weight (mass) of the regular and the diet drink of the same brand roughly equals to the amount of sugar in the regular drink.

   1998, Andy Sae, Chemical Magic from the Grocery Store

   Diet Light (Pizarro 724; snacks S2-7; 9:30am-10pm) This perennially busy place serves not-very-diet, but yummy nonetheless, ice cream (S2 to S5) and whopping servings of mixed fruit (S3) – with ice cream.

   2010, Lonely Planet Peru, →ISBN, page 347

2. figurativelyinformalnot comparableHaving certain traits subtracted.

   You folks reduce it to the bible only as being authoritative, impoverishing the faith. "Christianity Lite", diet Christianity for those who can't handle the Whole Meal.

   Synonyms: lite

present singular third person diets · participle present dieting · participle past dieted · past dieted · alternative dated rare diët · alternative obsolete diate

1. intransitiveTo modify one's food and beverage intake so as to decrease or increase body weight or influence health.

   I've been dieting for six months, and I've lost some weight.

2. datedtransitiveTo regulate the food of (someone); to put on a diet.

   they will diet themselves, feed and live alone.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 3, member 1, subsection 2

   2 more examples

   When all signs of effusion, dulness, pain, œgophony, and cough had disappeared he was dieted, stimulated, and tonicked.

   1887, Medical Press and Circular, volume 94, page 461

   As illustrating the belief that the Baptism by Blood was accompanied by a real regeneration of the devotee, Frazer quotes an ancient writer who says that for some time after the ceremony the fiction of a new birth was kept up by dieting the devotee on milk, like a new-born babe.

   1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 45

3. obsoleteTo eat; to take one's meals.

   Let him[…]diet in such places, where there is good company of the nation, where he travelleth.

   1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Travel”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC

4. obsoletetransitiveTo cause to take food; to feed.

   But partly led to diet my revenge […].

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

plural diets · alternative dated rare diët · alternative obsolete diate

1. capitalizedusuallyA council or assembly of leaders; a formal deliberative assembly.

   the National Diet of Japan

   1 more example

   They were given representation in some important diet committees.

2. ScotlandA session of exams.

   Normally the diet begins towards the end of April.

   2020 June 14, “Coronavirus: School exam timetable could be put back next year”, in BBC News website, BBC, retrieved 23 Apr 2026

3. Scots lawA criminal proceeding in court.
4. ScotlandA clerical or ecclesiastical function in Scotland.

   a diet of worship

1. abbreviationuncountablebiologyAbbreviation of direct interspecies electron transfer.

1. Alternative letter-case form of diet (“formal deliberative assembly”).