different between oakum vs fother

English

Etymology

From Middle English okome, from Old English ?cumba (“oakum”, literally “that which has been combed out, off-combings”), a derivative of ?cemban (“to comb out”), from Proto-Germanic *uz- + *kambijan? (“to comb”), from Proto-Indo-European *uds-, *?d- (“out”) + *?omb?-, *?emb?- (“tooth, nail; to pierce, gnaw through”). More at out, comb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???k?m/

Noun

oakum (countable and uncountable, plural oakums)

1. A material, consisting of tarred fibres, used to caulk or pack joints in plumbing, masonry, and wooden shipbuilding.
2. The coarse portion separated from flax or hemp in hackling.
   • 1983, Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde:

     My eyesight began to fail, from the strain of picking oakum in my cell.

Synonyms

• (flax or hemp fibers separated in hackling): tow, hards

Translations

Anagrams

• Okuma

English

Etymology

From Middle English fother, fothir, from Old Norse fóðr (cognate to Old English f?dor), from Proto-Germanic *f?dr? (compare Dutch voer (“pasture, fodder”), German Futter (“feed”), Swedish foder). Doublet of fodder. More at food.

Noun

fother (countable and uncountable, plural fothers)

1. (obsolete) A wagonload.
2. (obsolete) A load of any sort.
3. (historical) A load: various English units of weight or volume based upon standardized cartloads of certain commodities.
   • 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 168.

     Now measured by the old hundred, that is, 108 lbs. the charrus contains nearly 19½ hundreds, that is it corresponds to the fodder, or fother, of modern times.

4. (dialect) Alternative form of fodder, food for animals.
   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 2

     He ripp'd the womb up of his mother, / Dame Tellus, 'cause he wanted fother, / And provender, wherewith to feed / Himself and his less cruel steed.

Synonyms

• (unspecific amount): See cartload
• (specific amount): See load

Hyponyms

• (cartload): See load

Verb

fother (third-person singular simple present fothers, present participle fothering, simple past and past participle fothered)

1. (dialect) To feed animals (with fother).
2. (dated, nautical) To stop a leak with oakum or old rope (often by drawing a sail under the hull).

Anagrams

• forthe, therof

Middle English

Alternative forms

• foður, fothir, fothyr, futher, fodyr, fooder, foþer, foþere, foðer, voðer, ffoder

Etymology

From Old Norse fóðr, from Proto-Germanic *f?dr?. Doublet of fodder.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fo?ð?r/

Noun

fother (plural fothres)

1. wagonload (that which fits in a wagon)
2. A wildly inconsistent measure of weight primarily used for lead.
3. A great quantity, especially a load or of people.

Descendants

• English: fother
• Scots: fother

References

• “f??ther, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-18.