fodder - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

Fodder is cheap food, usually given to livestock animals like cows. If you gave a cow caviar or homemade scones, that would not be fodder. Try cornstalks.

Fodder is not just used to describe cattle feed. We use the word to talk about other kinds of feeding that don't involve actual food. A new celebrity marriage is fodder for gossip magazines. In war, the soldiers most likely to be killed, are called cannon fodder, from the times when armies used canons instead of drone aircraft dropping missiles.

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: fodder

1	n v	coarse food (especially for livestock) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop give fodder (to domesticated animals)
2	n	soldiers who are regarded as expendable in the face of artillery fire

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: fodder

1

n coarse food (especially for livestock) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop

Types:: show 6 types...; hide 6 types...; eatage, forage, grass, pasturage, pasture
bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle; alfalfa
leguminous plant grown for hay or forage; broad bean, horse bean
a bean plant cultivated for use animal fodder; hay
grass mowed and cured for use as fodder; stover
the dried stalks and leaves of a field crop (especially corn) used as animal fodder after the grain has been harvested; timothy
a grass grown for hay

Type of:: feed, provender
food for domestic livestock

v give fodder (to domesticated animals)

Type of:: feed, give
give food to

2

n soldiers who are regarded as expendable in the face of artillery fire

Synonyms:: cannon fodder, fresh fish

Type of:: soldier
an enlisted man or woman who serves in an army