eatable (etabl)

and n. [ IMG:content-0175.png:[blocks in formation] Thy wife's friends will eat thee out of house and home. Burton, Anat. of Mel., p. 544. To eat one's head off, to cost more in feeding than one is worth: said usually of an animal, particularly a horse. My mare has eaten her head off at the Ax in Alderman bury. Country Farmer's Catechism. To eat one's heart, to brood over one's sorrows or disappointments. He could not rest; but did his stout heart eat. Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. 6. I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a pa ing wind. Tennyson, In Memoriam, cviii. To eat one's terms, in the English inns of court, to go through the prescribed amount of study preparatory to being called to the bar: in allusion to the number of dinners a student must eat in the public hall of his society each term in order that the term may count as such. Together, save for college times, Or Temple-eaten terms. Tennyson, Aylmer's Field. To eat one's words, to take back what one has uttered; retract one's a ertions. I'll eat no words for you, nor no men. B. Jonson, Epicœne, v. 1. Would I were a man, I'd make him eat his knave's words ! Beau, and Fl . , Scornful Lady, iv. 1. If you find such a man in close and cordial influence with the ma es, write me, and these words will be eaten with pleasure! W. M. Baker, New Timothy, p. 21. To eat sour grapes. See grape1.=Syn. Eat, Bite, Chew, Gnaw, Decour, Gobble, Consume. Eat is the general word. To bite is to set the teeth into. To chew is to grind with the teeth. To ghaw is to bite off little by little, to work at with the teeth, where the substance is hard or managed with difficulty and there is little or nothing to be got: as, to gnaw a bone. To devour is to eat up, to eat eagerly or voraciously. To gobble is to eat hurriedly or offensively, as in large pieces. To consume is to eat up, to eat completely. Bite, chew, and gnaw do not imply swallowing; the others do. One cannot eat one's cake and have it too. Bicker staff , Thomas and Sally. Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through. George Eliot, Armgart, ii. esculent. What fish can any shore, or British sea-town show, That's eatable to us, that it doth not bestow Abundantly thereon? Drayton , Polyolbion, xxv. 158. II. n. Anything that may be eaten; that which is fit for or used as food. had no occasion for. Eatables we brought away, but the earthen ve els we Dampier, Voyages, an. 1685.