With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the 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.
To eat humble pie. See under Humble. -- To eat of (partitive use). "Eat of the bread that can not waste." Keble. -- To eat one's words, to retract what one has said. (See the Citation under Blurt.) -- To eat out, to consume completely. "Eat out the heart and comfort of it." Tillotson. -- To eat the wind out of a vessel (Naut.), to gain slowly to windward of her.
Syn. -- To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.
Eat, v. i. 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.