eat
eat
(ēt) verb
ate (
āt), eaten (ētʹn), eating, eats
verb
, transitive
1.
a. To take into the body by the mouth for digestion or absorption. b. To include habitually or by preference in one's diet: a bird that eats insects, fruit, and seeds; stopped eating red meat on advice from her doctor.
2. To consume, ravage, or destroy by or as if by ingesting: "Covering news in the field eats money" (George F. Will).
3. To erode or corrode: waves that ate away the beach; an acid that eats the surface of a machine part.
4. To produce by or as if by eating: Moths ate holes in our sweaters.
5. Slang. To absorb the cost or expense of: "You can eat your loss and switch the remaining money to other investment portfolios" (Marlys Harris).
6. Informal. To bother or annoy: What's eating him?
verb
, intransitive
1.
a. To consume food. b. To have or take a meal.
2. To exercise a consuming or eroding effect: a drill that ate away at the rock; exorbitant expenses that were eating into profits.
3. To cause persistent annoyance or distress: "How long will it be before the frustration eats at you?" (Howard Kaplan).
phrasal verb.
eat up Slang
To receive or enjoy enthusiastically or avidly: She really eats up the constant publicity.
idiom.
eat crow
To be forced to accept a humiliating defeat.
eat (one's) heart out
1.
To feel bitter anguish or grief.
2.
To be consumed by jealousy.
eat (one's) words
To retract something that one has said.
eat out of (someone's) hand
To be manipulated or dominated by another.
eat (someone) alive Slang
To overwhelm or defeat thoroughly: an inexperienced manager who was eaten alive in a competitive corporate environment.
[Middle English eten, from Old English etan.]
eat
ʹer noun
Synonyms:
eat, consume, devour, ingest. The central meaning shared by these verbs is "to take food into the body by the mouth": ate a hearty dinner; greedily consumed the sandwich; hyenas devouring their prey; whales ingesting krill.