Meanings
- obsoleterareuncountableThe act of eating or feeding.
Satisfied of this, Scobell commenced to fatten his comrade for another medical inspection, […] A week or two was enough for the process of pabulation; […]
1859, T. W. J. Connolly, The Romance of the Ranks, volume 1, Longman et al., page 1424 more examples
The bell rings, and the herd rush violently down into a steep place in the fore part of the vessel, and the Captain amuses us while the pabulation is going on.
1848, George Francklin Atkinson, Pictures from the North, in Pen and Pencil: Sketched during a Summer Ramble, John Ollivier, page 205[…] the country squire winces under the nauseous outpourings which are gulped as nectar by his shepherds and ploughmen. Again, the pabulation that would suit the squire, the shepherds and ploughmen would reject as dry and lifeless fetid bones.
1878, J. Turnbull Thomson, Social Problems: An Inquiry into the Law of Influences, C. Kegan Paul & Co., page 244What is formed into tissue or structure becomes, in turn, pabulum for others, and so on until all the elements which make up one organism, are finally restored to their original realm through the ceaseless round of pabulation.
1885 May, Hiram Christopher, “The Place in Creation and the Work in the Economy of Nature of Micro-Organisms”, in The Saint Louis Medical & Surgical Journal, volume 48, number 5, page 365The cyclostoma, as its name implies, has a circular mouth, and is, moreover, devoid of upper and lower jaws. An organism with such circumscribed capabilities for pabulation must have been limited, regarding its food supply, to stagnant slush that was brought near its stoma by friendly undulations of an emulsifying watery medium.
1918 June, J. A. Hagemann, “An Evolutional Aspect of the Pharyngeal Lymphatics”, in Medical Review of Reviews, volume 24, number 6, page 246
Origin
- Latinpābulātiō“action of collecting fodder or food; foraging”
- Englishpabulation
From pābulātiōn-, the stem of the Classical Latin pābulātiō (“action of collecting fodder or food; foraging”), from pābulor (“eat fodder, graze; collect fodder, forage”), from pābulum (“food, fodder”); compare the Middle French pabulation (“action of providing oneself with forage”).
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pabulation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pabulation
“pabulation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pabulation. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pabulation,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pabulation.
Source: pabulation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.