Word.ws English Dictionary

eat one's words

eat one's words verb: to regret or retract what one has said.

Verb

eat one's words (third-person singular simple present eats one's words, present participle eating one's words, simple past ate one's words, past participle eaten one's words)

  1. (figuratively) To regret or retract what one has said.
    • He didn't think I could do it, but I proved him wrong and made him eat his words.
    • This time, you have to eat your words, because, like it or not, you lost.

Synonyms of eat one's words

Forms of eat one's words

third-person singular presenteats one's words
present participleeating one's words
pastate one's words
past participleeaten one's words

Questions about eat one's words

What does eat one's words mean?
Eat one's words means to regret or retract what one has said.
What part of speech is eat one's words?
Eat one's words is a verb.
What is the past tense of eat one's words?
The past tense of eat one's words is ate one's words.

Words near eat one's words in the dictionary

  1. eat one's own dog food
  2. eat one's pride
  3. eat one's seed corn
  4. eat one's terms
  5. eat one's Wheaties
  6. eat one's words
  7. eat one's young
  8. eat out
  9. eat out of someone's hand
  10. eat out of the palm of someone's hand
  11. eat pussy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat one's words (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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