eat
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English eten, from Old English etan (“to eat”), from Proto-West Germanic *etan, from Proto-Germanic *etaną (“to eat”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁édti, from *h₁ed- (“to eat”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots ait (“to eat”), Yola ayth, eight (“to eat”), North Frisian iidj, iit, ää'e, ääre, ääse (“to eat”), Saterland Frisian iete, íete (“to eat”), West Frisian ite (“to eat”), Alemannic German asse, assu, essen, ässe, ässä (“to eat”), Bavarian eisn, essn, èssn (“to eat”), Cimbrian èssan, èzzan (“to eat”), Dutch and Low German eten (“to eat”), German essen (“to eat”), Luxembourgish iessen (“to eat”), Mòcheno èssn (“to eat”), Vilamovian aosa (“to eat”), Yiddish עסן (esn, “to eat”), Danish æde (“to eat”), Elfdalian jätå (“to eat”), Faroese eta (“to eat”), Icelandic eta, éta (“to eat”), Norwegian Bokmål ete (“to eat”), Norwegian Nynorsk eta, ete, åtå (“to eat”), Swedish äta (“to eat”), Gothic 𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (itan, “to eat”).
Inflected forms:
form: eats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: eating
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: past
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
past
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
past
form: eaten
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: etten
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
participle
past
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: nonstandard
participle
past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
first-person
past
singular
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
first-person
past
singular
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: eatest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
past
second-person
singular
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: atest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: eats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: eateth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
past
singular
third-person
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
singular
third-person
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
past
plural
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
plural
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: ate
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: et
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
past
subjunctive
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
subjunctive
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: eating
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: eaten
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: etten
pos: verb
tags: dialectal
participle
past
form: eat
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: eats
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To ingest; to be ingested.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: He's eating an apple. / Don't disturb me now; can't you see that I'm eating?
But meate commendeth vs not to God: for neither if we eate, are we the better: neither if wee eate not, are we the woꝛſe.
At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap orred tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.
Shepard: Everyone on this station is chafing under Anoleis' extortion. You might end up a hero.
Lorik Qui'in: My employers rely on the goodwill of the Executive Board to work here.
Wrex: If these "executives" don't blame Anoleis for provoking this, they're fools. You should eat them.
gloss: To ingest; to be ingested.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: What time do we eat this evening?
I eat in the kitchen.
gloss: To ingest; to be ingested.
pos: verb
tags: ergative
intransitive
examples: It's a soup that eats like a meal.
I don't know any quarter in England where you get such undeniable mutton—mutton that eats like mutton, instead of the nasty watery, stringy, turnipy stuff, neither mutton nor lamb, that other countries are inundated with.
[D]ish him with thlitheth of orangeth, barberrieth, grapeth, goothberrieth, and butter; and you will find that he eaths deliciouthly either with farced pain or gammon pain.
This wine is drinking great. And this food is eating great.
gloss: To ingest; to be ingested.
pos: verb
tags: copulative
intransitive
gloss: To use up.
pos: verb
tags: often
transitive
with-up
examples: This project is eating up all the money.
That hobby eats his savings.
His wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages.
gloss: To use up.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: A bigger problem, however, is that if you catch/eat an exception and do nothing with it, you are very likely introducing subtle bugs in your application that will be next to impossible to track down.
gloss: To use up.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: The VHS recorder just ate the tape and won't spit it out.
John is late for the meeting because the photocopier ate his report.
No! There's a problem with the cassette player. Don't press fast forward or it eats the tape!
gloss: To use up.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: The video game in the corner just ate my quarter.
Hey! This stupid [soda vending] machine ate my quarter.
gloss: To cause (someone) to worry.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: What's eating you?
gloss: To take the loss in a transaction.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I have to have him in court tomorrow, if he doesn't show up, I forfeit the bond and I have to eat the $300,000.
The server made an error when taking the order. The bartender prepared two scorpion bowls. When the error was realized the bartender was faced with having to "eat" the extra scorpion bowl […]
When they were doing it with the valuation professionals, they were billing the client, but the valuation professional in a lot of those early cases had to eat the cost of showing the auditor how the auditors' test model was incorrect.
gloss: To be injured or killed by (something such as a firearm or its projectile), especially in the mouth.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and Eddie Mars' gang. I dodge bullets and eat saps.
And, of course, there was Brian Rusk, who had eaten a bullet at the ripe old age of eleven.
Friends are only necessary in the ghastly country, where you have to have them, along with rubber boots and a barometer and secateurs, to put off bucolic idiocy, a wet brain, or eating the 12-bore.
Mike had been to other calls where someone had eaten a gun. He knew to expect teeth embedded in the ceiling and brains dripping off it.
The animal was sweating and scared and MacAdams was surprised when they finished up without either of them eating a kick.
There was a resounding smacking noise and Georgy was sure Philip had just eaten a fist.
gloss: To corrode or erode.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: The acid rain ate away the statue.  The strong acid eats through the metal.
gloss: To perform oral sex (on a person or body part).
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: Eat me!
I ate his ass.
Yeah, eat that dick / eat that pussy.
gloss: To do or perform well and stunningly; to consume a challenge successfully and stylishly; to rule, to slay.
pos: verb
tags: slang
stative
examples: You ate that performance!
This song eats!
Lorde and Charli XCX confronted each other via song like some kind of alt-pop musical-theater number, and it ate. “The girl, so confusing version with lorde,” like all the best pop music, features multiple moments that burrow into your brain and refuse to leave, giving you no other choice but to simply relisten to the track.
gloss: To annex.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
gloss: Something to be eaten; a meal; a food item.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
examples: Eating a Picnic creates a flurry of wafer pieces, flying peanuts and chocolate crumbs. […] As well as being messy, Picnic happens to be a big eat – something of a consumption challenge in fact.
Synonyms: eat
have
fret
Related words: fret
ort
drink
edible
food
eat someone out of house and home
mouthful
taste
Translations: