alimentativeadj.

1653 W. Harvey Anat. Exercises viii. 46 All the parts are nourished, cherished, and quickned with blood, which is warm, perfect, vaporous, full of spirit, and that I may so say, alimentative.

1846 Southern Cultivator 4 190/2 If he finds it [sc. the soil] in want of new alimentative matter, let him immediately proceed to raising stable and cow-pen manures.

1881 T. H. Huxley in Nature 11 Aug. 346/1 If the analogy holds good, there can be only two kinds of diseases, the one dependent on abnormal states of the physiological units, the other on perturbation of their co-ordinating and alimentative machinery.

1906 B. Stoker Personal Reminisc. Henry Irving 246 One and all draw alimentative substance from common sources.

2001 C. Gillespie European Gastron. into 21st Cent. i. 6 Understanding of the alimentative, psychological and cultural value of the family meal is potentially being lost.

1832 Transylvania Jrnl. Med. 5 349 An industrious man has no time for luxurious indulgences. He soon therefore ceases to feel a desire for them. The reason is, that his alimentative organ loses its intensity for want of stimulation.

1954 W. S. Taylor Dynamic & Abnormal Psychol. vi. 113 An occasional abnormal adult's sexual motivation has become attached to some special alimentative, sensory, or other motivation through undue influences.

1978 Appl. Animal Ethol. 4 299 Alimentative behaviour includes eating and drinking as well as selectivity of food, grazing patterns and diurnally timed ingestion.