gobble up

“Steptoe coincided with me in this opinion, and informing me that Lieutenant Alexander Piper would join my detachment with a mountain 'howitzer, directed me to convey the command to the island and gobble up all who came over to it.”

Fictionaut: She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories

“The British Mediterranean Fleet also included four large armored cruisers — Defence, Warrior, Black Prince, and Duke of Edinburgh — all relatively new but already obsolete, made so intentionally by Fisher, who had decreed that in wartime, his faster, more powerful battle cruisers would gobble up armored cruisers “like an armadillo let loose on an ant-hill.””

Castles of Steel

“Living in the United States, where our toilets gobble up gallons of water even the low-flow ones, although they’re an improvement, and where both warm and cold water are on tap day and night in more than 95 percent of households,44 it is easy to forget how valuable and limited a resource this is.”

Simon & Schuster: THE STORY OF STUFF