eat (ēt) v.
ate (āt), eat·en (ēt'n), eat·ing, eats
v.
tr.
To take into the body by the mouth for digestion or absorption.
To take in and absorb as food: a plant that eats insects; a cell that eats bacteria.
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.
To destroy, ravage, or use up by or as if by ingesting: "Covering news in the field eats money"(George F. Will).
To erode or corrode: waves that ate away the beach; an acid that eats the surface of a machine part.
To produce by or as if by eating: Moths ate holes in our sweaters.
Slang To absorb the cost or expense of: "You can eat your loss and switch the remaining money to other investment portfolios"(Marlys Harris).
Informal To bother or annoy: What's eating him?
Vulgar Slang To perform cunnilingus on. Often used with out.
v.
intr.
To consume food.
To have or take a meal.
To exercise a consuming or eroding effect: a drill that ate away at the rock; exorbitant expenses that were eating into profits.
To cause persistent annoyance or distress: "How long will it be before the frustration eats at you?"(Howard Kaplan).
Phrasal Verb(s): eat up Slang
To receive or enjoy enthusiastically or avidly: She really eats up the publicity.
To believe without question: He'll eat up whatever the broker tells him.
Idiom(s):
eat crowTo be forced to accept a humiliating defeat.
Idiom(s):
eat (one's) heart out
To feel bitter anguish or grief.
To be consumed by jealousy.
Idiom(s):
eat (one's) wordsTo retract something that one has said.
Idiom(s):
eat out of (someone's) handTo be manipulated or dominated by another.
Idiom(s):
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; see ed- in Indo-European roots.] eat'er n.
Synonyms: These verbs mean to take food into the body by the mouth: ate a hearty dinner; greedily consumed the sandwich; hyenas devouring their prey; whales ingesting krill.
(ēt) 