Eat

Eat (ēt), v. 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. 'e`dein, 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.

The lean . . . did eat up the first seven fat kine.

The lion had not eaten the carcass.

With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat.

The island princes overbold
Have eat our substance.

His wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages.

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, v. 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. To taste or relish; as, it eats like tender beef.

3. To make one's way slowly.

To eat, To eat in or 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.