Word.ws English Dictionary

chew the fat

chew the fat verb: to chat idly or generally waste time talking.

Verb

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

  1. (informal) To chat idly or generally waste time talking.
    • We're not supposed to waste time chewing the fat with the customers.

chew the fat meaning in Malayalam

chew the fat in Malayalam

chat, chatter, talk
നീണ്ട സൗഹൃദസംഭാഷണം നടത്തുക, നർമ്മസല്ലാപം നടത്തുക, സല്ലപിക്കുക, സംഭാഷണം ചെയ്യുക, വെടി പറയുക, സംസാരിക്കുക

Synonyms of chew the fat

All synonyms of chew the fat

Forms of chew the fat

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

Origin of chew the fat

One of the possible origins is from the fact that after a meal people would go into their sitting room with their guests and chit chat while chewing on the fat left over from a meal. Another possibility comes from sailors who often had salted beef and pork on long voyages and the fat would harden. Sailors would eat and complain about the hard life of the sea while "chewing the fat" Probably just from comparison of the jaw movements in chewing to the jaw movements in talking.

Questions about chew the fat

What does chew the fat mean?
Chew the fat means to chat idly or generally waste time talking.
What is chew the fat in Malayalam?
Chew the fat in Malayalam is നീണ്ട സൗഹൃദസംഭാഷണം നടത്തുക, നർമ്മസല്ലാപം നടത്തുക, സല്ലപിക്കുക. See Chew the fat meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is chew the fat?
Chew the fat is a verb.
What is the past tense of chew the fat?
The past tense of chew the fat is chewed the fat.

Words near chew the fat in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chew the fat (page history and authors); chew the fat (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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 fat.ogg.

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