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Webster 1913 Edition
Fother
Foth′er
,Noun.
[OE.
fother
, foder
, AS. fō[GREEK]er
a cartload; akin to G. fuder
a cartload, a unit of measure, OHG. fuodar
, D. voeder
, and perh. to E. fathom
, or cf. Skr. pātrā
vessel, dish. Cf. Fodder
a fother.] 1.
A wagonload; a load of any sort.
[Obs.]
Of dung full many a
fother
. Chaucer.
2.
See
Fodder
, a unit of weight. Foth′er
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Fothered
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Fothering
.] To stop (a leak in a ship at sea) by drawing under its bottom a thrummed sail, so that the pressure of the water may force it into the crack.
Totten.
Webster 1828 Edition
Fother
FOTH'ER
,Noun.
A weight of lead containing eight pigs, and every pig twenty one stone and a half. But the fother is of different weights. With the plumbers in London it is nineteen hundred and a half, and at the mines, it is twenty two hundred and a half.
FOTH'ER
,Verb.
T.
To endeavor to stop a leak in the bottom of a ship, while afloat, by letting down a sail by the corners, and putting chopped yarn, oakum, wool, cotton, &c. Between it and the ship's sides. These substances are sometimes sucked into the cracks and the leak stopped.