eat Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb take in solid food
    • She was eating a banana
    • What did you eat for dinner last night?
  2. verb eat a meal; take a meal
    • We did not eat until 10 P.M. because there were so many phone calls
    • I didn't eat yet, so I gladly accept your invitation
  3. verb take in food; used of animals only
    feed.
    • This dog doesn't eat certain kinds of meat
    • What do whales eat?
  4. verb worry or cause anxiety in a persistent way
    eat on.
    • What's eating you?
  5. verb use up (resources or materials)
    exhaust; consume; wipe out; deplete; use up; eat up; run through.
    • this car consumes a lot of gas
    • We exhausted our savings
    • They run through 20 bottles of wine a week
  6. verb cause to deteriorate due to the action of water, air, or an acid
    rust; corrode.
    • The acid corroded the metal
    • The steady dripping of water rusted the metal stopper in the sink

WordNet

Eat transitive verb
Etymology
OE. eten, AS. etan; akin to OS. etan, OFries. eta, D. eten, OHG. ezzan, G. essen, Icel. eta, Sw. äta, Dan. æde, Goth. itan, Ir. & Gael. ith, W. ysu, L. edere, Gr. , Skr. ad. . Cf. Etch, Fret to rub, Edible.
Wordforms
imperfect Ate Obsolescent & Colloq Eat ; past participle Eaten obsolete or Colloq Eat (); present participle & verbal noun Eating
Definitions
  1. To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread. "To eat grass as oxen." Dan. iv. 25.
    They . . . ate the sacrifices of the dead. Ps. cvi. 28.
    The lean . . . did eat up the first seven fat kine. Gen. xli. 20.
    The lion had not eaten the carcass. 1 Kings xiii. 28.
    With stories told of many a feat, How fairy Mab junkets eat. Milton.
    The island princes overbold Have eat our substance. Tennyson.
    His wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages. Thackeray.
  2. To corrode, as metal, by rust; to consume the flesh, as a cancer; to waste or wear away; to destroy gradually; to cause to disappear. Syn. -- To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.
Eat intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To take food; to feed; especially, to take solid, in distinction from liquid, food; to board.
    He did eat continually at the king's table. 2 Sam. ix. 13.
  2. To taste or relish; as, it eats like tender beef.
  3. To make one's way slowly.

Webster 1913