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EAT

[eet]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

to take into the mouth and swallow for nourishment; chew and swallow (food).

to consume by or as if by devouring gradually; wear away; corrode: The patient was eaten by disease and pain.

to make (a hole, passage, etc.), as by gnawing or corrosion.

to ravage or devastate: a forest eaten by fire.

to use up, especially wastefully; consume (often followed by up): Unexpected expenses have been eating up their savings.

EXPAND

to absorb or pay for: The builder had to eat the cost of the repairs.

Slang: Vulgar. to perform cunnilingus or fellatio on.

COLLAPSE

verb (used without object)

to consume food; take a meal: We'll eat at six o'clock.

to make a way, as by gnawing or corrosion: Acid ate through the linoleum.

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Eat is one of our favorite verbs.

So is hornswoggle. Does it mean:

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

LEARN MORE FUN, UNUSUAL VERBS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

noun

10.

eats, Informal. food.

Verb phrases

11.

eat away/into, to destroy gradually, as by erosion: For eons, the pounding waves ate away at the shoreline.

12.

eat out, to have a meal at a restaurant rather than at home.

13.

eat up,

to consume wholly.

to show enthusiasm for; take pleasure in: The audience ate up everything he said.

to believe without question.

Idioms

14.

be eating someone, Informal. to worry, annoy, or bother: Something seems to be eating him—he's been wearing a frown all day.

15.

eat crow. crow¹ (def. 7).

16.

eat high off the hog. hog (def. 9).

17.

eat humble pie. humble pie (def. 3).

18.

eat in, to eat or dine at home.

EXPAND

19.

eat one's heart out. heart (def. 24).

20.

eat one's terms. term (def. 17).

21.

eat one's words. word (def. 15).

22.

eat out of one's hand. hand (def. 49).

23.

eat someone out of house and home, to eat so much as to strain someone's resources of food or money: A group of hungry teenagers can eat you out of house and home.

24.

eat someone's lunch, Slang. to thoroughly defeat, outdo, injure, etc.

25.

eat the wind out of, Nautical. to blanket (a sailing vessel sailing close-hauled) by sailing close on the weather side of.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
before 900; Middle English eten, Old English etan; cognate with German essen, Gothic itan, Latin edere

Related forms

eat·er, noun

out·eat, verb (used with object), -ate, -eat·en, -eat·ing.

un·der·eat, verb (used without object), -ate, -eat·en, -eat·ing.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To EAT

Example Sentences

It's long been advised that people who get nighttime heartburn eat no later than three to four hours before bed.

Sometimes the best way to save something is to eat it.

It certainly adds to the flavour and may even make the food safer all round to eat.

EXPAND

It's long been advised that people who get nighttime heartburn eat no later than three to four hours before bed.

Sometimes the best way to save something is to eat it.

It certainly adds to the flavour and may even make the food safer all round to eat.

Imagine having to wait for a whale to drop from the sky before you could eat.

The ants could benefit the fungus they eat by dispersing their spores.

Cut at home, it's easy to serve and eat and is refreshing even if it's a little bit warm.

Chilling before fruit is ready to eat can stop the ripening process.

Researchers are working on autonomous robots that eat to produce energy.

Our approach to holiday leftovers could help us eat better all year long.

The days you have lab, you may not be able to eat any solid food afterward.

Rats, mice and locusts eat the crops in the field or in storage.

Bernays and her colleagues showed that infected woolly bears eat more toxic alkaloids than their non-infected peers.

If you painstakingly contemplate eating the food you're about to dig into, there's a good chance you'll eat less of it.

Blue monkeys eat bush babies, squirrel-size nocturnal primates.

Eat whole and unpeeled–spongy rind is sweet, pulp is tangy.

Wounds heal in real time, and you must hunt and eat animals to stay strong.

Imagine gathering all the food you plan to eat today.

Some people that eat hair have had huge bezoars removed.

Don't eat between meals and don't drink soft drinks.

However, the insects will also eat others of their own kind.

Eat something that's bad for you and you get sick, effectively teaching you to never eat that thing again.

Most must resort to an iron self-discipline bolstered by a hefty dose of superiority over those who eat junk food.

Shiny black ground beetles eat some snail and slug eggs.

After all, a lot of people eat fast food because it's cheap, especially in our recession-ravaged moment.

Sometimes, spring break is an excuse opportunity to eat fast food.

Eat good wholesome meals with fibre and get plenty of fresh vegetables.

Many humans also eat the low-fat, high-protein insects.

People with wheat allergies can safely eat spelt as well as barley and rye, while those with celiac cannot.

By eating it, the scientists reasoned, the quolls would learn that cane toads are bad to eat.

Cut the vegetables at home, make the dressing, then toss everything together when you're ready to eat.

Beckham began forcing herself to eat a balanced diet only when she became pregnant.

Eat immediately, or you can refrigerate to eat later.

Health-conscious consumers already eat healthily and do not need specialised foods.

Aca immediately identified it as a megamouth shark and encouraged the fishers not to eat it.

There is an old local saying,"Cajuns will eat anything that don't eat them first".

The fish are served on a platter, and the broth in a tureen, and you eat both together in large soup plates.

Rations are left out at all times and your chickens may choose to eat whenever their hearts desire.

If it was actually trying to eat you, it'd jump on your back from behind and snap your neck.

My cats would eat it to the stub if they had a chance.

Scientists have shown that portion size partly determines how much people eat.

Though wood storks eat small fish, they eat a lot of them.

People eat the same salmon consumed by the killer whales.

Chimpanzees eat mostly fruit, but now and then a group hunts down a monkey.

Bacteriophages are viruses that attack and eat bacteria.

There is reason to think that punters are growing wary of the notion that they can eat their way to fighting fitness.

After a large meal, the tarantula may not need to eat for a month.

If they are going to eat them, they should be farming them.

Most animals start digesting their food as soon as they eat it.

Antarctic octopuses eat a wide variety of animals, from clams to fish.

They eat natural bark and stems, and have been known to invade campgrounds and chew on canoe paddles.

By a simple food-in/energy-out model, a run on the treadmill or swim in the pool should make you want to eat more.

Some of the old tools even bear traces of the same nuts that modern chimps eat.

Also, remember that yeast's favorite thing to eat is sugar.

Flies on a diet live much longer than flies that are allowed to eat all they want.

Likewise, some seals will eat snow to get fresh water.

Without a stomach, patients typically lose significant weight and must eat smaller meals more often.

It's quite rare to me that two deer eat sideways together.

Generally, users eat the buttons whole or grind them up into a powder that can be mixed into food or brewed into a tea.

Kinkajous also eat fruit and small mammals, which they snare with their nimble front paws and sharp claws.

Make sure the cake has cooled enough to eat before digging in.

Many gardeners and farmers welcome mantids, because the insects they eat are often pests that hurt crops.

The bacteria filter the water, then eat up the sludge that's a common byproduct of waste treatment.

Seriously, though, my mom won't even eat cookies the day after they're baked or any kind of leftovers.

Those who are not eat fewer cookies, whereas those who are see the excessive pizza as a licence to pig out.

Some eat fruit, and a few are predators of small vertebrates.

Resident orcas, researchers found, eat chinook and chum salmon.

What to eat for quick energy and good digestion, and easy recipes to try right.

Research in mice finds that you need to eat new fat to get rid.

The two younger cats eat anything that doesn't eat them first.

It allows a dieter to eat as much protein as he-or she-craves, so long as only negligible amounts of carbohydrate are consumed.

The first evidence has been found that chimps use tools to dig for tubers, roots, and bulbs to eat.

At these one-stop nightspots, you can have your entertainment and eat it.

You've got something bigger than you out there, something that can kill and eat you any time it chooses to, though it seldom does.

When people see health food as larger, they are more likely to want to eat it.

Capuchin monkeys, those adorable organ grinders, eat owl monkeys and so.

What to do, where to stay, and where to eat in the city's three best neighborhoods for summer.

Men are more likely to eat frozen rather than fresh hamburgers.

Some moves by food companies anticipate new laws that would give consumers more information about what they eat.

Make vegetables the star of the dish, and you'll eat healthier and save money.

The global recession continued to eat away at higher.

Even so, they are responding to the economic gloom by changing what they eat, where they eat and where they buy their groceries.

Some fungi eat radiation to fuel their growth, a new study suggests.

Nevertheless, doctors routinely tell their obese patients to restrict what they eat.

Carnivores eat only meat, of course, which means they eat other mammals that live on plants.

Haunt your enemies' rice paddies, then eat their skulls.

We always let our kids eat with us even when they were really little.

In captivity, they are fed softer food they can eat more quickly, so their teeth grow.

Newly evolved earthworms found at old mining sites eat toxic waste and could help cleanse polluted industrial land.

Beef consumption is rising rapidly, both as population increases and as people eat more meat.

Capri has been a destination for centuries, but here are the best places for today's visitors to hike, eat and enjoy the vistas.

Trouble is, when millions of people eat it, it could potentially go the way of the dodo.

If you don't eat a slice right away, you still get a chance to eat them later-but at the cost of taking a section of cake.

The global recession continued to eat away at higher-education budgets.

They are making sure that the household is up and working and each child has something to eat.

Birds and mammals eat the berries, which resemble blueberries.

Most people know by now that it's poor dietary form to eat right before bed, but the body's natural.

Eat baby carrots raw with dips and spreads, or enjoy their sweet flavor when cooked.

Either eat the fare change or explain that you cannot meet at the appointed time, but can meet earlier.

Those modern sharks that eat shelled animals have robust teeth for crunching through hard exteriors.

Learn how they turn the food they eat into color, energy, and even weapons.

Worms, such as the night crawler, eat leaf litter which acts as a rooting medium for new growth.

If you can't beat them or eat them, then fish them to extinction.

Trout do eat other fish, but they efficiently convert what they eat, minimizing the numbers that are.

Some eat shark cartilage, while others prefer chick cartilage.

When asked, half say that those with enough to eat and live on are not poor, even if they can't afford anything else.

They also catch and eat small animals, such as insects and caterpillars.

Eat pork and chicken and fish more than you eat beef and lamb.

And readers never tired of the joy of having something tasty to eat when having little or nothing to eat was more often the case.

Small critters eat the biofilms, fish eat the critters, and the water gradually gets cleaner.

But trying too hard to please others will backfire if you don't deliver, and will eat away at your reputation.

It seems unlikely that either of the new procedures will yield something that is unsafe to eat.

Research has found that ritual and context influences us to eat too much with no regard for quality.

What's more, unless you grow certain kinds yourself, you might not get a chance to eat them.

Stress-free animals eat more and arrive on your dinner plate that much faster.

Grab a piece of wholegrain bread with peanut butter and a bit of jelly freeze tube yogurt and eat it as ice-cream.

Without large grazing herbivores to eat them, acacia trees suffer because of a shift in the ant populations they house.

H eat loving shrubs have nectar-filled tubular flowers with two lobes above the mouth, three on the lower lip.

And other research has shown that even quite inexperienced tadpoles can be canny when it comes to things that might eat them.

Introverts have a preference to reflect more than they socialize and fat people have a preference to eat more than they move.

When threatened, they curl into a ball making it painful for predators to try to eat them.

For some species this maxim holds especially true because what they eat plays an integral part in how they defend themselves.

Some people prefer to eat geoducks with pale necks, but color doesn't influence taste.

Avoid too-cool food by keeping dishes covered with foil or lids until ready to eat.

People were unsure what was safe to eat and from where it was safe to buy.

And if your pregnancy sickness is really awful, try to eat and drink things that won't taste too awful on the way back up.

Scavengers are a part of the food web, a description of which organisms eat which other organisms in the wild.

And after several months many previously allergic kids can eat a tablespoon of peanut butter without ill effect.

Blood sausage scares some people-but it's delightful for those brave enough to eat it.

At meal time, give her what you want for her to eat, and let her decide if she will eat it.

The humpback, in particular, can eat more than a ton of krill in one day.

They actually need for us to eat them to complete their life cycle.

Just about anything that can eat cicadas gorges on them during their emergence.

These infectious worms dwell in human veins and eat our blood.

My favorite way to eat it is with shrimp scampi and asparagus tossed in.

She won't even reprimand students for breaking such social rules as using the clam shell fork to eat sirloin steak.

From rotten shark to bull penis, watch as people prepare and eat dishes other cultures can barely imagine.

Towns can be said to be alive or dead, but in the case of my town, it's so alive you can eat it.

Red tide is an algae that contaminates shellfish and can be dangerous to humans who eat the shellfish.

Fossil remains indicate that insects actually eat more plant material when the planet is warmer.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

eat (iːt)

—vb (often foll by into or through) , eats, eating, ate, eaten
1.	to take into the mouth and swallow (food, etc), esp after biting and chewing
2.	(tr; often foll by away or up) to destroy as if by eating: the damp had eaten away the woodwork
3.	(often foll by into) to use up or waste: taxes ate into his inheritance
4.	to make (a hole, passage, etc) by eating or gnawing: rats ate through the floor
5.	to take or have (a meal or meals): we always eat at six
6.	(tr) to include as part of one's diet: he doesn't eat fish
7.	informal (tr) to cause to worry; make anxious: what's eating you?
8.	slang (tr) to perform cunnilingus or fellatio upon
9.	informal I'll eat my hat if I will be greatly surprised if (something happens that proves me wrong)
10.	eat one's heart out to brood or pine with grief or longing
11.	eat one's words to take back something said; recant; retract
12.	eat out of someone's hand to be entirely obedient to someone
13.	eat someone out of house and home to ruin someone, esp one's parent or one's host, by consuming all his food

[Old English etan; related to Gothic itan, Old High German ezzan, Latin edere, Greek edein, Sanskrit admi]

'eater

—n

EAT or EAZ

—*abbreviation for*
	Tanzania (international car registration)

[from E(ast) A(frica) T(anganyika) or E(ast) A(frica) Z(anzibar)]

EAZ or EAZ

—*abbreviation for*

[from E(ast) A(frica) T(anganyika) or E(ast) A(frica) Z(anzibar)]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

eat

O.E. etan (class V strong verb; past tense æt, pp. eten), from P.Gmc. *etanan (cf. O.N. eta, Goth. itan, Ger. essen), from PIE base *ed- "to eat" (see edible). Transferred sense of "slow, gradual corrosion or destruction" is from 1550s. Meaning "to preoccupy, engross"

EXPAND

(as in what's eating you?) first recorded 1893. Slang sexual sense of "do cunnilingus on" is first recorded 1927. Eat out "dine away from home" is from 1933. The slang phrase to eat one's words is from 1570s; to eat one's heart out is from 1590s; for eat one's hat, see hat.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

eat (ēt)
v. ate (āt), eat·en (ēt'n), eat·ing, eats

To take into the body by the mouth for digestion or absorption.
To consume, ravage, or destroy by or as if by ingesting, such as by a disease.

Slang Dictionary

eat definition

tv.
[for something] to bother or worry someone. : Nothing's eating me. I'm just the nervous type.
tv.
to absorb the cost or expense of something. : We'll eat the costs on this one. It's the least we can do.
tv.
to perform oral sex on someone. (Usually objectionable.) : She said she wanted to eat me!

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

eat (one's) definition

tv.
to suffer from sorrow or grief. : Don't eat your heart out. You really didn't like him that much, did you?
tv.
to suffer from envy or jealousy. (Usually a command.) : Yeah, this one's all mine. Eat your heart out!

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

eat (sth) definition

tv.
to consume something rapidly, such as food or money. : Running this household eats my income up.
tv.
to believe something. : Those people really eat that stuff up about tax reduction.
tv.
to appreciate something. : The stuff about the federal budget went over well. They really ate up the whole story.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Abbreviations & Acronyms

EAT