Word.ws English Dictionary

eats

/iːts/

eats is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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

Noun

eats pl (plural only)

  1. (colloquial, plural, plural-only) Food.
    • When are we going to get some eats?
    • There were two or three all-night diners to choose from and they pushed through the door that announced GOOD EATS in the brightest neon.1954, Ian Fleming, “The Everglades”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 118

Phrases with eats

55 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with eats

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about eats

What does eats mean?
Eats means food.
What is eats the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Eats is the third-person singular simple present indicative of eat.
What part of speech is eats?
Eats is a noun.
How do you pronounce eats?
Eats is pronounced /iːts/.

Words near eats in the dictionary

  1. Eatonsville
  2. Eatonton
  3. Eatontown
  4. eatress
  5. eatresses
  6. eats
  7. eats an elephant one bite at a time
  8. eats and leaves no crumbs
  9. eats and runs
  10. eats ass
  11. eats away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eats (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-eats.ogg.

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