EAT UP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does eat up mean? 

• EAT UP (verb)
  The verb EAT UP has 3 senses:

1. finish eating all the food on one's plate or on the table

2. use up (resources or materials)

3. enclose or envelop completely, as if by swallowing

  Familiarity information: EAT UP used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EAT UP (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Finish eating all the food on one's plate or on the table

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Synonyms:

eat up; finish; polish off

Context example:

She polished off the remaining potatoes

Hypernyms (to "eat up" is one way to...):

eat (take in solid food)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "eat up"):

put away; tuck away; tuck in (eat up; usually refers to a considerable quantity of food)

consume; demolish; devour; down; go through (eat up completely, as with great appetite)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They eat up more bread

Sense 2

Meaning:

Use up (resources or materials)

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Synonyms:

consume; deplete; eat; eat up; exhaust; run through; use up; wipe out

Context example:

They run through 20 bottles of wine a week

Hypernyms (to "eat up" is one way to...):

drop; expend; spend (pay out)

Verb group:

occupy; take; use up (require (time or space))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "eat up"):

run out (exhaust the supply of)

drain (deplete of resources)

indulge; luxuriate (enjoy to excess)

burn; burn off; burn up (use up (energy))

spend (spend completely)

exhaust; play out; run down; sap; tire (deplete)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

They eat up more bread

Sense 3

Meaning:

Enclose or envelop completely, as if by swallowing

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

bury; eat up; immerse; swallow; swallow up

Context example:

The huge waves swallowed the small boat and it sank shortly thereafter

Hypernyms (to "eat up" is one way to...):

close in; enclose; inclose; shut in (surround completely)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

Then we'll go and eat up all the raisins.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But I can guess how it was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which had been a great distress to him, was all eat up.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Sometimes her family were invited in to help eat up a too bounteous feast of successes, or Lotty would be privately dispatched with a batch of failures, which were to be concealed from all eyes in the convenient stomachs of the little Hummels.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)