eat

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To take into the body by the mouth for digestion or absorption.
2. v. To take in and absorb as food: a plant that eats insects; a cell that eats bacteria.
3. v. To include habitually or by preference in one's diet: a bird that eats insects, fruit, and seeds; stopped eating red meat on advice from her doctor.
4. v. To destroy, ravage, or use up by or as if by ingesting: "Covering news in the field eats money” ( George F. Will).
5. v. To erode or corrode: waves that ate away the beach; an acid that eats the surface of a machine part.
6. v. To produce by or as if by eating: Moths ate holes in our sweaters.
7. v. Slang To absorb the cost or expense of: "You can eat your loss and switch the remaining money to other investment portfolios” ( Marlys Harris).
8. v. Informal To bother or annoy: What's eating him?
9. v. Vulgar Slang To perform cunnilingus on. Often used with out.
10. v. To consume food.
11. v. To have or take a meal.
12. v. To exercise a consuming or eroding effect: a drill that ate away at the rock; exorbitant expenses that were eating into profits.
13. v. To cause persistent annoyance or distress: "How long will it be before the frustration eats at you?” ( Howard Kaplan).
14. eat up Slang To receive or enjoy enthusiastically or avidly: She really eats up the publicity.
15. eat up Slang To believe without question: He'll eat up whatever the broker tells him.
16. idiom. eat crow To be forced to accept a humiliating defeat.
17. idiom. eat (one's) heart out To feel bitter anguish or grief.
18. idiom. eat (one's) heart out To be consumed by jealousy.
19. idiom. eat (one's) words To retract something that one has said.
20. idiom. eat out of (someone's) hand To be manipulated or dominated by another.
21. idiom. eat (someone) alive Slang To overwhelm or defeat thoroughly: an inexperienced manager who was eaten alive in a competitive corporate environment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To masticate and swallow as nourishment; partake of or devour as food: said especially of solids: as, to eat bread.
2. To corrode; wear away; gnaw into; consume; waste: generally with away, out, up, or into: as, rust has eaten away the surface; lines eaten out by aqua fortis; these cares eat up all my time.
3. To take food; feed.
4. To make way by corrosion; gnaw; penetrate or excavate by disorganization or destruction of substance: as, a cancer eats into the flesh.
5. To taste; relish: as, it eats like the finest peach.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive, intransitive To consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
2. v. intransitive To consume a meal.
3. v. intransitive, ergative To be eaten.
4. v. transitive To destroy, consume, or use up.
5. v. transitive, informal To cause (someone) to worry.
6. v. transitive, business To take the loss in a transaction.
7. v. transitive, intransitive To corrode or erode.
8. v. transitive, informal To damage, destroy, or fail to eject a removable part or an inserted object.
9. v. transitive, informal, of a vending machine or similar device To consume money or (other instruments of value, such as a token) deposited or inserted by a user, while failing to either provide the intended product or service, or return the payment.
10. v. transitive, informal, vulgar To perform oral sex on someone.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid.
2. v. 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.
3. v. To take food; to feed; especially, to take solid, in distinction from liquid, food; to board.
4. v. To taste or relish.
5. v. To make one's way slowly.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. take in food; used of animals only
2. v. worry or cause anxiety in a persistent way
3. v. use up (resources or materials)
4. v. take in solid food
5. v. eat a meal; take a meal
6. v. cause to deteriorate due to the action of water, air, or an acid