food

plural foods

1. uncountableusuallyAny solid substance that can be consumed by living organisms, especially by eating, in order to sustain life.

   The innkeeper brought them food and drink.

   2 more examples

   “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […]”

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.

   2013 June 29, “A punch in the gut”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, pages 72–3

   Synonyms: belly-timber, chow, comestible, eats, feed, fodder, foodstuff, grub

2. countableusuallyA foodstuff, a type of food.

   Variation and changes in the trans fatty acid content of different foods, especially in processed foods, further complicate such estimates.

   2006, C Williams, J Buttriss, Improving the Fat Content of Foods, →ISBN, page 492

   Synonyms: belly-timber, foodstuff, provender

3. figurativelyuncountableusuallyAnything that nourishes or sustains.

   Mozart and Bach are food for my soul.

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   The man's inspiring speech gave us food for thought.

   This may prove food to my displeasure.

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]

   In this moment there is life and food / For future years.

   1798, William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

4. Multicultural London EnglishuncountableusuallyAny illegal substance or illegal substances, drugs.

   I'm so London, I'm so south / Food in the ends like there ain't no drought / Flipz don't talk like he's got no mouth

   2015, Stormzy, “Shut Up” (track 15), in Gang Signs & Prayer, performed by Stormzy

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   What kind of things that you have. When I find out don't expect me to stop. I'll come for the P's that you stack. And come for the food that you blot.

   2009 March 17, “Next Hype” (track 3), in All-Star Pars, performed by Tempa T

   [Verse 2:Kano]:If you've been shotting in the manor from way back when and you ain't on a kilo ting, I don't wanna hear about cunch and food and tings, man don't do those tings.

   2016 March 4, “3 Wheel-Ups” (track 4), in Made in the Manor, performed by Kano (British musician),Giggs (rapper),Wiley (musician)