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 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
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.
Eat (ēt), v. t. [imp. Ate (āt; 277), Obsolescent & Colloq.
Eat (&ebreve;t); p. p. Eaten (ēt"'n), Obs. or
Colloq. Eat (&ebreve;t);
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.
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.
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