eat transitive verb [imperfect Ate (āt; 277), Obsolescent & Colloq. Eat (ĕt); past participle Eaten (ēt′’n), Obs. or Colloq. Eat (ĕt); present participle or verbal noun 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. To eat humble pie

See under Humble.

To eat of (partitive use).

“Eat of the bread that can not waste.” Keble.

To eat one’s words

to retract what one has said. (See the Citation under Blurt.)

To eat out

to consume completely.

“Eat out the heart and comfort of it.” Tillotson.

To eat the wind out of a vessel (Naut.)

to gain slowly to windward of her.

Syn. – To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.

Eat intransitive verb

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.