eat one's own
eat one's own verb: to turn on and attack members of one's own group or clique.
Verb
eat one's own (third-person singular simple present eats one's own, present participle eating one's own, simple past ate one's own, past participle eaten one's own)
- To turn on and attack members of one's own group or clique.
- So, in a way, they sat back and watched liberals eat their own—they watched as just deserts advocates undermined the legitimacy of rehabilitation in a way they never could have.2016, Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson, Correctional Theory: Context and Consequences
Forms of eat one's own
| third-person singular present | eats one's own |
|---|---|
| present participle | eating one's own |
| past | ate one's own |
| past participle | eaten one's own |
Origin of eat one's own
Short for eat one's own kind or similar, as certain living organisms do.
Questions about eat one's own
- What does eat one's own mean?
- Eat one's own means to turn on and attack members of one's own group or clique.
- What part of speech is eat one's own?
- Eat one's own is a verb.
- What is the past tense of eat one's own?
- The past tense of eat one's own is ate one's own.
Words near eat one's own in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: eat one's own (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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