Word.ws English Dictionary

chew the cud

chew the cud verb: to ruminate (of ruminant animals).

Verb

chew the cud (third-person singular simple present chews the cud, present participle chewing the cud, simple past and past participle chewed the cud)

  1. To ruminate (of ruminant animals).
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic) To meditate or ponder before answering; to be deep in thought; to ruminate.
    • chewed the thrice turned cud of wrath1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
    • George sat chewing the cud over matters. Unhappy memories.1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), page 46

chew the cud meaning in Tamil, Telugu and Vietnamese

chew the cud in Tamil

to chew the cud
மீள் mīḷ

chew the cud in Telugu

literal meaning
నెమరువేయు nemaruvēyu

chew the cud in Vietnamese

literal meaning
nhơi

Forms of chew the cud

third-person singular presentchews the cud
present participlechewing the cud
past participlechewed the cud
pastchewed the cud

Questions about chew the cud

What does chew the cud mean?
Chew the cud means to ruminate (of ruminant animals).
What is chew the cud in Tamil?
Chew the cud in Tamil is மீள் (mīḷ). See Chew the cud meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is chew the cud?
Chew the cud is a verb.
What is the past tense of chew the cud?
The past tense of chew the cud is chewed the cud.

Words near chew the cud in the dictionary

  1. chew out
  2. chew over
  3. chew stick
  4. chew sticks
  5. Chew Stoke
  6. chew the cud
  7. chew the fat
  8. chew the meat and spit out the bones
  9. chew the rag
  10. chew the scenery
  11. chew toy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chew the cud (page history and authors); மீள் (Tamil) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-chew the cud.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chew the cud.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chew_the_cud. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.