eat one's head off
eat one's head off verb: of an animal: to cost more to feed than it is worth.
Verb
eat one's head off (third-person singular simple present eats one's head off, present participle eating one's head off, simple past ate one's head off, past participle eaten one's head off)
- Of an animal: to cost more to feed than it is worth.
- And then, as he sauntered up Whitehall towards Charing Cross, with Robarts on his arm, he again pressed upon him the sale of that invaluable hunter, who was eating his head off his shoulders in the stable at Chaldicotes.1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage
- Now Jim and I had found it necessary to buy a horse and cart, and the animal was eating its head off in a stable by the mill.1908, D. F. E. Sykes, Miriam: A Tale of Pole Moor and the Greenfield Hills
Forms of eat one's head off
| third-person singular present | eats one's head off |
|---|---|
| present participle | eating one's head off |
| past | ate one's head off |
| past participle | eaten one's head off |
Questions about eat one's head off
- What does eat one's head off mean?
- Eat one's head off means of an animal: to cost more to feed than it is worth.
- What part of speech is eat one's head off?
- Eat one's head off is a verb.
- What is the past tense of eat one's head off?
- The past tense of eat one's head off is ate one's head off.
Words near eat one's head off in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: eat one's head off (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.
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