![\"toefl](\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2017\/01\/shutterstock_527502421.jpg\")
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Today, we’re going to look at a TOEFL animal-related verb that can be confusing. The word is “feed.” <\/p>\n
The verb form of “feed” is probably the one you’re most familiar with. There’s a good chance that you already know the common sense of “to feed.” This means “to give food to someone or something.” Note that this meaning of feed is a transitive verb<\/em>. <\/p>\n That means that “feed,” when used in this sense, must have a direct object. This should be easy enough to remember. After all, if you’re giving food, you’re not just giving food to the air, right? You need to feed a dog, feed your family, and so on.<\/p>\n That common use of the verb “feed” is easy enough, I hope. But here’s where the verb “feed” gets tricky: feed can also be intransitive<\/em>, having no direct object. This intransitive form of “feed” is especially common in academic science texts like the ones you see on the TOEFL. <\/p>\n How can this be? Didn’t I just tell you that “feed” refers to giving food to someone? Yes, I did. But “feed” can also refer to a different food-related act, one that involves taking food, not giving it. In this sense “feed” has a meaning that’s very similar to “eat.”<\/p>\n You can say “the cows are eating” or “the cows are feeding.” This use of “feed” may seem a little strange to you. That’s understandable, especially because “feed” is not used as a substitute for “eat” in everyday English conversation. Not only that, but “feed” generally can’t replace “eat” when you refer to a person who’s eating. The intransitive form of “feed” is only used to refer to the eating habits of animals.<\/p>\n The grammar of “feed” can be a bit different from “eat” too. As I mentioned, “feed” is an intransitive verb when it refers to eating. But “eat” is transitive. So what’s going on here? If you make a statement like “A wolf eats rabbits,” how can you make a similar statement using “feeds” instead of “eats?” <\/p>\n Here, prepositional phrases come to the rescue. Remember, an intransitive verb can’t be followed by a direct object. But it can be followed by a preposition and prepositional object. So you can say a wolf eats rabbits, or you can say a wolf feeds on rabbits. Both statements have the same meaning, and have correct grammar!<\/p>\n Feed can be a noun too. We’ll get into “feed”-as-noun in the second part of this series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, we’re going to look at a TOEFL animal-related verb that can be confusing. The word is “feed.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13604],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-4345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocab"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n“Feed” as an Intransitive Verb<\/h2>\n
“Feed” as a Noun<\/h2>\n