Eat — Defs

01 v. t. To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread.

imp. Ate; p. p. Eaten; p. pr. & vb. n. Eating

1.
To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread.Obsolescent & Colloq.
“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.

Phrases & compounds

To eat humble pie — See under Humble.

To eat of — (partitive use).

To eat one's words — to retract what one has said. (See the Citation under Blurt.)

To eat out — to consume completely.

To eat the wind out of a vessel — to gain slowly to windward of her.

Syn. To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.

02 v. i. To take food; to feed; especially, to take solid, in distinction from liquid, food; to board.

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.

Phrases & compounds

To eat — to make way by corrosion; to gnaw; to consume.

To eat to windward — to keep the course when closehauled with but little steering; -- said of a vessel.