diet
English
Alternative forms
- diët (rare)
Pronunciation
Etymology
From Old French diete, from Medieval Latin dieta "daily allowance, regulation, daily order", from Ancient Greek δίαιτα (diaita).
Noun
diet (plural diets)
- The food and beverage a person or animal consumes.
- The diet of the Giant Panda consists mainly of bamboo.
- (countable) A controlled regimen of food and drink, as to gain or lose weight or otherwise influence health.
- By extension, any habitual intake or consumption.
- He's been reading a steady diet of nonfiction for the last several years.
- (countable) A council or assembly of leaders; a formal deliberative assembly.
Derived terms
Translations
food a person or animal consumes
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controlled regimen of food
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habitual consumption
council of leaders
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Verb
diet (third-person singular simple present diets, present participle dieting, simple past and past participle dieted)
- (transitive) To regulate the food of (someone); to put on a diet.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, I.iii.1.2:
- they will diet themselves, feed and live alone.
- Spenser
- She diets him with fasting every day.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, I.iii.1.2:
- (intransitive) To modify one's food and beverage intake so as to decrease or increase body weight or influence health.
- I've been dieting for six months, and have lost some weight.
- (obsolete) To eat; to take one's meals.
- Francis Bacon
- Let him […] diet in such places, where there is good company of the nation, where he travelleth.
- Francis Bacon
- (obsolete, transitive) To cause to take food; to feed.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)