FOTH'ER, noun [See Food.] 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 transitive [from stuffing. See the preceding word.] 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, etc. Between it and the ship's sides. These substances are sometimes sucked into the cracks and the leak stopped.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI