victual
verb
Simple meaning
To lay in or procure food supplies.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vikchoouhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɪktʃuəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitivechiefly militarynautical
To lay in or procure food supplies.
transitivereflexivechiefly militarynautical
To provide (military troops, a place, a ship, etc., or oneself) with a stock of victuals or food; to provision.
Supply with food
“The population was victualed during the war.”
intransitive
To eat.
Lay in provisions
“The vessel victualled before the long voyage.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To provide (military troops, a place, a ship, etc., or oneself) with a stock of victuals or food; to provision.
Used this way, victual is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use victual
- “The population was victualed during the war.”verb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.