pabulum

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Food or fodder, particularly that taken in by plants or animals.

   “Having for many years considered oil as the great pabulum of plants, I was much hurt by the result of some experiments, which state oil as poison; and turning this in my thoughts a thousand times over, it at last occurred to me, that though oil, as oil in its crude state, might act as a poison, yet it might be so changed as to convey it with great advantage to the soil, […]”

   “Germinal matter, as far as is known, is structureless soft, transparent, colorless. It can be studied in the fungi and in the lowest form of animals in the amœba, and in mucus, pus and the white-blood corpuscles of the higher animals. Its properties, as we have seen, are living, growing, active, and it moves through some natural power of its own. It has power to produce itself out of the food or pabulum, and muliplying by division, or dropping off of portions of its body.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Material that feeds a fire.

   “[…] But when we find that they [volcanoes] are but few in Number, and the chiefeſt of thoſe too near the torrid Zone, and from their Tops to iſſue forth, now clear Fire, then thick, black Smoke, and ſometimes little or nothing at all; we muſt conclude, that they are only particular Fires, probably of the Sun’s kindling at firſt, and ſince continued by the caſual and incidental Applications of that Pabulum, which thoſe Part of the Earth adminiſter to them.”

   “[W]e know from experience, that the light of a candle, lamp, or fire depends on, and emanates from the flame of each; and we alſo knw that this flame is nouriſhed and ſuſtained by a pabulum or fuel, which is conſumed or waſted, according to the quantity of light that iſſues from the flame; and that, when this food or fuel is exhauſted, the flame expires and yields no more light.”

3. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Food for thought.

   “And with the eye of a bird seeking for minute fragmnts of seed, minute insects, tiny parasites, we also look for things that to us are the constituents of our mental or visual pabula.”

4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Bland intellectual fare; an undemanding diet of words.

   “At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy ; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.”

   “But the rescheduling of the directors' meeting for 7.30 a.m., and the trotting-out of such tawdry pabulums?”

   “As this was largely a traditionally crafted speech, there were some painful cliches and political pabulum to which a typical politician might be prone, of course.”