Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Eat

Eat

(ēt)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp.
Ate
(āt; 277)
,
Obsolescent & Colloq.
Eat
(ĕt)
;
p. p.
Eaten
(ēt′’n)
,
Obs. or Colloq.
Eat
(ĕt);
p. pr. & vb. n.
Eating
.]
[OE.
eten
, AS.
etan
; akin to OS.
etan
, OFries.
eta
, D.
eten
, OHG.
ezzan
, G.
essen
, Icel.
eta
, Sw.
äta
, Dan.
æde
, Goth.
itan
, Ir. & Gael.
ith
, W.
ysu
, L.
edere
, Gr.
ἔδειν
, Skr.
ad
. √6. Cf.
Etch
,
Fret
to rub,
Edible
.]
1.
To chew and swallow as food; to devour; – said especially of food not liquid;
as, to
eat
bread
.
“To eat grass as oxen.”
Dan. iv. 25.
They . . .
ate
the sacrifices of the dead.
Ps. cvi. 28.
The lean . . . did
eat
up the first seven fat kine.
Gen. xli. 20.
The lion had not
eaten
the carcass.
1 Kings xiii. 28.
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets
eat
.
Milton.
The island princes overbold
Have
eat
our substance.
Tennyson.
His wretched estate is
eaten
up with mortgages.
Thackeray.
2.
To corrode, as metal, by rust; to consume the flesh, as a cancer; to waste or wear away; to destroy gradually; to cause to disappear.
Syn. – To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.

Eat

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To take food; to feed; especially, to take solid, in distinction from liquid, food; to board.
He did
eat
continually at the king’s table.
2 Sam. ix. 13.
2.
To taste or relish;
as, it
eats
like tender beef
.
3.
To make one's way slowly.
To eat
,
To eat in
or
To eat into
,
to make way by corrosion; to gnaw; to consume.
“A sword laid by, which eats into itself.”
Byron.
–
To eat to windward
(Naut.)
,
to keep the course when closehauled with but little steering; – said of a vessel.

Webster 1828 Edition

Eat

EAT

,
Verb.
T.
pret. ate; pp. eat or eaten. [L. edo, esse, esum.]
1.
To bite or chew and swallow, as food.
Men eat flesh and vegetables.
They shall make thee to eat grass as oxen. Dan.4.
2.
To corrode; to wear away; to separate parts of a thing gradually, as an animal by gnawing. We say a cancer eats the flesh.
3.
To consume; to waste.
When goods increase, they are increased that eat them. Ecc.5.
4.
To enjoy.
If ye be willing and obedient,ye shall eat the good of the land. Is.1.
5.
To consume; to oppress.
Who eat up my people as they eat bread. Ps.14.
6.
To feast.
Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Is.22.
In scripture, to eat the flesh of Christ, is to believe on him and be nourished by faith.
To eat one's words, is to swallow back; to take back what has been uttered; to retract.

EAT

,
Verb.
I.
To take food; to feed; to take a meal, or to board.
He did eat continually at the king's table. 2 Sam.
Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners. Matt.9.
1.
To take food; to be maintained in food.
To eat, or to eat in or into, is to make way by corrosion; to gnaw, to enter by gradually wearing or separating the parts of a substance. A cancer eats into the flesh.
Their word will eat as doth a canker. 2 Tim.2.
To eat out, to consume.
Their word will eat out the vitals of religion, corrupt and destroy it.

Definition 2024

eat

eat

English

Verb

eat ‎(third-person singular simple present eats, present participle eating, simple past ate or (dialectal) et or (obsolete) eat, past participle eaten)

  1. To ingest; to be ingested.
    1. (transitive, intransitive) To consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
      He’s eating an apple.  Don’t disturb me now; can't you see that I’m eating?‎
      • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate, chapter II:
        At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
      • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
        But Richmond […] appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw […] that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.
    2. (intransitive) To consume a meal.
      What time do we eat this evening?‎
    3. (intransitive, ergative) To be eaten.
      The soup that eats like a meal.‎
  2. To use up.
    1. (transitive) To destroy, consume, or use up.
      This project is eating up all the money.‎
    2. (transitive, informal, of a device) To damage, destroy, or fail to eject a removable part or an inserted object.
      The VHS recorder just ate the tape and won't spit it out.‎
      John is late for the meeting because the photocopier ate his report.‎
    3. (transitive, informal, of a vending machine or similar device) To consume money or (other instruents of value, such as a token) deposited or inserted by a user, while failing to either provide the intended product or service, or return the payment.
      The video game in the corner just ate my quarter.‎
      • From the movie Slap Shot
        Hey! This stupid [soda vending] machine ate my quarter.
  3. (transitive, informal) To cause (someone) to worry.
    What’s eating you?‎
  4. (transitive, business) To take the loss in a transaction.
    It’s a special order, so we can’t send it back; if the customer won’t accept it, we’ll have to eat the forty tons of steel ourselves.‎
    • From the movie Midnight Run
      I have to have him in court tomorrow, if he doesn't show up, I forfeit the bond and I have to eat the $300,000.
  5. (transitive, intransitive) To corrode or erode.
    The acid rain ate away the statue.  The strong acid eats through the metal.‎
  6. (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on someone.
    Eat me!‎

Conjugation

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: modern · medium · ill · #842: eat · et · scene · hot

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

eat

  1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of eō

Northern Sami

Verb

eat

  1. first-person plural present of ii

West Frisian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /jɛt/

Pronoun

eat

  1. something, anything

Antonyms

Etymology

From Middle English eten, from Old English etan ‎(“to eat”), from Proto-Germanic *etaną ‎(“to eat”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- ‎(“to eat”). Cognate with Scots aet ‎(“to eat”), Saterland Frisian iete ‎(“to eat”), West Frisian ite ‎(“to eat”), Low German eten ‎(“to eat”), Dutch eten ‎(“to eat”), German essen ‎(“to eat”), Swedish äta ‎(“to eat”), Danish æde ‎(“to eat”), and more distantly with Latin edō ‎(“eat”, verb), Ancient Greek ἔδω ‎(édō), Russian есть ‎(jestʹ, “to eat”), and Lithuanian ėsti.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /iːt/
  • (US) IPA(key): /it/
  • Rhymes: -iːt

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