handfeed

H4A1N1D2F4E1E1D2

verb

to feed by hand.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

verbhandfeed (third-person singular simple present handfeeds, present participle handfeeding, simple past and past participle handfed)

present singular third person handfeeds · participle present handfeeding · participle past handfed · past handfed · alternative hand-feed · alternative hand feed

  1. transitiveto feed by hand.

    Marjorie handfeeds one of her many pets, an orphaned joey, at Campbell Town.

    2011, Danielle Wood, Housewife Superstar: The Very Best of Marjorie Bligh, page 97
    2 more examples

    Walker only saw the place in its deceitful summer promise, when the corn, whose husks were never to fill, was waving in sunshine, when the potato-fields, which were to yield nothing but dwarfed and rotten tubercles, were still gay in blossom, and the cattle, which for nine months of the year have to be housed and handfed with more tenderness than their masters, were luxuriating in sunny grass.

    1878, William O'Brien, Christmas in the Galtees: An Inquiry Into the Condition of the Tenantry of Mr. Nathaniel Buckley

    It would be important to keep the total number of cattle handfed on property to a minimum.

    2016, Lajpat R. Ahuja, Agricultural System Models in Field Research and Technology Transfer

Origin

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with handfeed

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

handfeed. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/handfeed

MLA

“handfeed.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/handfeed. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “handfeed,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/handfeed.

Source: handfeed on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.