eat

/iːt//it/

eat verb: to consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.

Image: Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

eat (third-person singular simple present eats, present participle eating, simple past ate or (dialectal) et or (obsolete) eat, past participle eaten or (dialectal) etten or (nonstandard) ate)

(ambitransitive) To consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
- He's eating an apple.
- Don't disturb me now. Can't you see that I'm eating?
Synonyms:

consume, swallow
(intransitive) To consume a meal.
- What time do we eat this evening?
- I eat in the kitchen.2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
Synonyms:

dine, chow down, feed one's face
(copulative, intransitive) To have a particular quality of diet; to be well-fed or underfed.
- I try to eat healthy these days.
(ergative, intransitive) To be ingested.
- It's a soup that eats like a meal.
(intransitive) To be savored or enjoyed; to taste in a specified way.
- It's an unattractive dish, but it eats pretty good.
(figuratively, often, transitive, with-up) To destroy, consume, or use up.
- This project is eating up all the money.
- That hobby eats his savings.
(figuratively, informal, transitive) To consume (an exception, an event, etc.) so that other parts of the program do not receive it.
- 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.2005, Wallace B. McClure, Gregory A. Beamer, John J. Croft IV, Professional ADO.NET 2, page 246
(figuratively, informal, transitive) To damage, destroy, or fail to eject a removable part or an inserted object.
- 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.
(figuratively, informal, transitive) To consume money (or other instruments of value, such as a token) deposited or inserted by a user, while failing to either provide the intended product or service or return the payment.
- The video game in the corner just ate my quarter.
- Hey! This stupid [soda vending] machine ate my quarter.1977, Nancy Dowd, Slap Shot (movie)
(informal, transitive) To cause (someone) to worry.
- What's eating you?
Synonyms:

bother, disturb, worry
(transitive) To take the loss in a transaction.
- I have to have him in court tomorrow, if he doesn't show up, I forfeit the bond and I have to eat the $300,000.1988, George Gallo, Midnight Run (movie)
- 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 […]1999, Ronald S. Beitman, Liquor Liability: A Primer for Winning Your Case, page 27
(slang, transitive) To be injured or killed by (something such as a firearm or its projectile), especially in the mouth.
- I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and Eddie Mars' gang. I dodge bullets and eat saps.1944, William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, The Big Sleep (screenplay)
- And, of course, there was Brian Rusk, who had eaten a bullet at the ripe old age of eleven.1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

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(ambitransitive) To corrode or erode.
- The acid rain ate away the statue. The strong acid eats through the metal.
(slang, transitive) To perform oral sex (on a person or body part).
- Eat me!
- I ate his ass.
Synonyms:

eat out
(ambitransitive, slang, stative, African-American Vernacular) To do or perform well and stunningly; to consume a challenge successfully and stylishly; to rule, to slay.
- You ate that performance!
- This song eats!
Synonyms:

devour, eat and leave no crumbs, bang, rock, slap, excel, go hard, kick, kick ass, rule
(sometimes, transitive) To act well (in a role); to be intensely devoted (to a role).
- Most of the movie was pretty weak, but she ate her role, and I couldn't take my eyes off her.
(slang, transitive) To annex.

Noun

eat (plural eats)

(colloquial) Something to be eaten; a meal; a food item.
- 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.2011, William Chitty, Nigel Barker, Michael Valos, Integrated Marketing Communications, page 167

eat meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

eat in Hindi

to ingest — see also consume, ingest: खाना khānā, लेना lenā

eat in Tamil

to ingest — see also consume, ingest: சாப்பிடு cāppiṭu, உண் uṇ, தின் tiṉ

eat in Marathi

to ingest — see also consume, ingest: खाणे khāṇe
eat a meal: जेवणे jevṇe

eat in Urdu

to ingest — see also consume, ingest: کھانا khānā

More languagesFewer languages

eat in Bengali: খাওয়া khaōẇa
eat in Telugu: తిను tinu, భుజించు bhujiñcu
eat in Malayalam: കഴിക്കുക kaḻikkuka, തിന്നുക tinnuka, ഉണ്ണുക uṇṇuka
eat in Kannada: ತಿನ್ನು tinnu
eat in Punjabi: ਖਾਣਾ khāṇā
eat in Gujarati: ખાવું khāvũ
eat in Odia: ଖାଇବା khāibā
eat in Sanskrit: अत्ति atti, खादति khādati
eat in Sinhala: කනවා kanawā, වලඳීනවා walaⁿdīnawā
eat in Assamese: খা kha
eat in Nepali: खानु khānu
eat in Pashto: خوړل xwaṛᶕl
eat in Tagalog: kain, kumain, kainin, nilamon
eat in Arabic: أَكَلَ imperfective: يَأْكُلُ ʔakala, كَلْ kal, Tunisian Arabic كلِا kle
eat in Malay: makan, santap
eat in Indonesian: makan, santap
eat in Persian: خْوَارْدَن xwārdan, خورْدَن xurdan
eat in Thai: กิน gin, รับประทาน ráp-bprà-taan, ทาน taan, ฉัน chǎn
eat in Vietnamese: ăn, ăn cơm, xơi, chén
eat in Myanmar: စား ca:, သုံးဆောင် sum:hcaung, ဘုဉ်းပေး bhuny:pe:
Sindhi: کائِڻُ khāiṇu
Kashmiri: کھیٛۆن kh'on

Examples of eat in a sentence

Yeah, eat that dick / eat that pussy.
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.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 8:8, column 2:
They do not eat parchment or foolscap orred tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
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.1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
[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.1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “In Which the Minstrelsy Proceeds”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume I, London: Tinsley...

All 40 example sentences with eat

Synonyms of eat

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of eat

Forms of eat

third-person singular present	eats
present participle	eating
past	ate
past participle	eaten
past (dialectal)	et
past (obsolete)	eat
past participle (dialectal)	etten
past participle (nonstandard)	ate
first-person singular past (archaic)	eat
second-person singular present (archaic)	eatest
second-person singular past (archaic)	eat
second-person singular past (archaic)	atest
third-person singular present (archaic)	eateth
third-person singular past (archaic)	eat
plural past (archaic)	eat
past subjunctive (archaic)	eat

Past tense of eat: ate

Origin of eat

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”).

From Middle English ete, ate, æte, from Old English ǣt (“food, eating”), from Proto-West Germanic *āt, from Proto-Germanic *ētą (“food, thing to eat”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”). Cognate with West Frisian iten (“food”), Saterland Frisian Íeten (“food”), German Aas (“carrion”), Vilamovian aosa (“food”), Icelandic át (“eating; solid food”).

Words formed from eat

Phrases with eat

72 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with eat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about eat

What does eat mean?: Eat means to consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
What is eat in Hindi?: Eat in Hindi is खाना (khānā), लेना (lenā). See Eat meaning in Hindi.
How do you use eat in a sentence?: Yeah, eat that dick / eat that pussy.
What part of speech is eat?: Eat can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce eat?: Eat is pronounced /iːt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of eat?: The past tense of eat is ate.

Words near eat in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-to eat.ogg, En-us-eat.ogg.

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