Word.ws English Dictionary

eate

eate is the obsolete spelling of eat.

Meaning of eat

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)

  1. (ambitransitive) To consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
    • He's eating an apple.
    Synonyms:
    consume, swallow
  2. (intransitive) To consume a meal.
    • What time do we eat this evening?
  3. (copulative, intransitive) To have a particular quality of diet; to be well-fed or underfed.
    • I try to eat healthy these days.
  4. (ergative, intransitive) To be ingested.
    • It's a soup that eats like a meal.
  5. (intransitive) To be savored or enjoyed; to taste in a specified way.
    • It's an unattractive dish, but it eats pretty good.
  6. (figuratively, often, transitive, with-up) To destroy, consume, or use up.
    • This project is eating up all the money.

See all 18 meanings of eat

Forms of eate

third-person singular presenteates
present participleeating
present participleeateing
pastate
past participleeaten

Questions about eate

What is eate the obsolete spelling of?
Eate is the obsolete spelling of eat.

Words near eate in the dictionary

  1. Eatanswills
  2. eatathon
  3. eatathons
  4. eatche
  5. eatches
  6. eate
  7. eated
  8. eateing
  9. eaten
  10. eaten an elephant one bite at a time
  11. eaten and left no crumbs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eate (page history and authors); 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.

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