victual

/ˈvɪtəl/

noun4

•
(no longer used) Food fit for human (or occasionally animal) consumption.
- Shift bore (for il aire) as best ye do thinke, / and twise a day giue him fresh vittle and drinke: […] — 1878
•
[in the plural] (no longer used) Food supplies; provisions.
- It is good to make prouision, for peraduenture wee shall lacke victuals and wee lie in campe on Blacke Heath long. — 1593
(no longer used) Edible plants.
•
(Scotland, no longer used) Grain of any kind.
- But if the beast and branks be spar'd / Till kye be gaun without the herd, / An' a' the vittel in the yard, / An' theckit right, / I mean your ingle-side to guard / Ae winter night. — 1785

•
[with oneself] (no longer used) To provide (military troops, a place, a ship, etc., or oneself) with a stock of victuals or food; to provision.
- [T]hy louing voyage / Is but for two moneths victuall’d: […] — 1598
•
(no longer used) To lay in or procure food supplies.
- A letter from Lt.-Gen. [John] Burgoyne to Maj.-Gen. [William] Heath, Jan. 24. 1778. […] [T]he fleet was fully victualled for four months, for the whole of the land-army and seamen. — 1779
•
(no longer used) To eat.
- I have Drank and Victual’d at Sir Humphrey’s for a Months Famine I am to endure here—I am hung round with Bottles and stuft full of Provision; will you eat a Pullet? — 1680

forms

victualed · victualled · victualing · victualling · victualeth · victualleth · victuals · victuallest