Word.ws English Dictionary

eat crow

US/ˌit ˈkɹoʊ/

eat crow verb: to recognize that one has been shown to be mistaken or outdone, especially by admitting that one has made a humiliating error.

Verb

eat crow (third-person singular simple present eats crow, present participle eating crow, simple past ate crow, past participle eaten crow)

  1. (US, idiomatic) To recognize that one has been shown to be mistaken or outdone, especially by admitting that one has made a humiliating error.
    • He must apologise, he saw that clearly enough, must eat crow, as he told himself.1901, Frank Norris, chapter 2, in The Octopus
    • The Nationals started with Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean, who reveled in striking out Lou Gehrig in the first inning. Gehrig made Dean eat crow in the third inning by smashing a home run.1937 July 19, “Baseball Races”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2008

eat crow meaning in Tamil

eat crow in Tamil

கூறியது, அவமானப்படு

Examples of eat crow in a sentence

  • In political libel, furthermore, a public recanting by the vilifier is more likely to be believed by the public, for it is well known that no politician likes to "eat crow" unless he has to.1950, J.C.N.P., “Libel Actions by Political Organizations”, in University of Pennsylvania Law Review, volume 98, number 6, page 883:
  • Democrats surely hope we’ll have to eat crow on today’s update and pull Montana back into the Toss-up category later in the cycle.2024 September 6, Kyle Klondik, University of Virginia Center for Politics:

Forms of eat crow

third-person singular presenteats crow
present participleeating crow
pastate crow
past participleeaten crow

Origin of eat crow

First appeared in the US in the 1870s under the form eat boiled crow. Further origin unknown. Crow meat is considered unfit for consumption, but this is true of very many animals. Compare perhaps the association of black birds with misfortune.

Questions about eat crow

What does eat crow mean?
Eat crow means to recognize that one has been shown to be mistaken or outdone, especially by admitting that one has made a humiliating error.
What is eat crow in Tamil?
Eat crow in Tamil is கூறியது, அவமானப்படு. See Eat crow meaning in Tamil.
How do you use eat crow in a sentence?
In political libel, furthermore, a public recanting by the vilifier is more likely to be believed by the public, for it is well known that no politician likes to "eat crow" unless he has to.
What part of speech is eat crow?
Eat crow is a verb.
How do you pronounce eat crow?
Eat crow is pronounced /ˌit ˈkɹoʊ/ (US).
What is the past tense of eat crow?
The past tense of eat crow is ate crow.

Words near eat crow in the dictionary

  1. eat away
  2. eat away at
  3. eat beaver
  4. eat boiled crow
  5. eat cookie
  6. eat crow
  7. eat cunt
  8. eat dirt
  9. eat down
  10. eat for two
  11. eat from someone's hand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat crow (page history and authors); eat crow (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-eat crow.ogg.

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