What Does “Food for thought” mean?
Definition:
If you give someone food for thought, you provide them with information or knowledge that is worthy of contemplation.
Origin
This late-nineteenth-century metaphor transfers the idea of digesting from the stomach to pondering something in the mind.
Providing something as food for thought implies that it is very much like the food that needs to be digested. Accordingly, the useful insights obtained from the process of digesting the information are similar to the nutrients that feed the body.
Synonyms
The verb ruminate is a synonym for the phrase. It uses a similar analogy. It alludes to ruminants, such as cows, that digest their food by chewing it over and over.
Other synonyms of the idiom are:
– Mental stimulation.
– Mental nourishment.
– Something to think about.
– Subject-for-thought.
– Intellectual-nourishment.
– Something-to-chew-on.
Example(s)
The ideas developed in this book have certainly given me food for thought.
His suggestion gave us food for thought.
Their proposal for becoming our partners is food for thought.
