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eat

Syllabification: (eat)
Pronunciation: /ēt/

Translate eat | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of eat

verb (past ate /āt/; past participle eaten /ˈētn/)

[with object]
  • put (food) into the mouth and chew and swallow it:he was eating a hot dog eat up all your peas [no object]:she watched her son as he ate
  • have (a meal):we ate dinner in a noisy cafe
  • [no object] (eat out) have a meal in a restaurant.
  • [no object] (eat in) have a meal at home rather than in a restaurant.
  • informal bother; annoy:she knew what was eating him
  • vulgar slang perform fellatio or cunnilingus on (someone).
  • vulgar slang (eat out) perform cunnilingus or anilingus on (someone).
  • informal absorb (financial loss or cost).

noun

(eats) informal
  • food or snacks:people would stop for soft drinks or eats

Phrases

eat someone alive

informal (of insects) bite someone many times:we were eaten alive by mosquitoes
exploit someone’s weakness and completely dominate them:he expects manufacturers to be eaten alive by lawyers in liability suits

eat crow

see crow1.

eat dirt

see dirt.

eat someone's dust

see dust.

eat one's heart out

suffer from excessive longing, especially for someone or something unattainable.
[in imperative] informal used to encourage feelings of jealousy or regret:eat your heart out, I’m having a ball!

eat humble pie

see humble.

eat like a bird (or a horse)

informal eat very little (or a lot).

eat someone out of house and home

informal eat a lot of someone else’s food.

eat one's words

retract what one has said, especially in a humiliated way:they will eat their words when I win

have someone eating out of one's hand

have someone completely under one’s control.

I'll eat my hat

informal used to indicate that one thinks the specified thing is extremely unlikely to happen:if he comes back, I’ll eat my hat

Phrasal Verbs

eat away at (or eat something away)

erode or destroy something gradually:the sun and wind eat away at the ice prevents bone from being eaten away
use up (profits, resources, or time), especially when they are intended for other purposes:inflation can eat away at the annuity’s value over the years

eat into

another way of saying eat away at .

eat someone up

(usually as adjective eaten up) dominate the thoughts of someone completely:I’m eaten up with guilt

eat something up

use resources or time in very large quantities:an operating system that eats up 200Mb of disk space
encroach on something:this is the countryside that villagers fear will be eaten up by concrete

Origin:

Old English etan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch eten and German essen, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin edere and Greek edein

eat in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of eat in the British & World English dictionary

Nearby words

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