EATING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does eating mean? 

• EATING (noun)
  The noun EATING has 1 sense:

1. the act of consuming food

  Familiarity information: EATING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EATING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of consuming food

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

eating; feeding

Hypernyms ("eating" is a kind of...):

consumption; ingestion; intake; uptake (the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating))

Meronyms (parts of "eating"):

chew; chewing; manduction; mastication (biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "eating"):

mycophagy (the practice of eating fungi (especially mushrooms collected in the wild))

bite; chomp (the act of gripping or chewing off with the teeth and jaws)

browse; browsing (the act of feeding by continual nibbling)

coprophagia; coprophagy (eating feces; in human a symptom of some kinds of insanity)

dining (the act of eating dinner)

engorgement (eating ravenously or voraciously to satiation)

banqueting; feasting (eating an elaborate meal (often accompanied by entertainment))

graze; grazing (the act of grazing)

lunching (the act of eating lunch)

repletion; surfeit (eating until excessively full)

supping (ingestion of liquid food with a spoon or by drinking)

degustation; relishing; savoring; savouring; tasting (taking a small amount into the mouth to test its quality)

necrophagia; necrophagy (feeding on corpses or carrion)

omophagia (the eating of raw food)

scatophagy (the eating of excrement or other filth)

Derivation:

eat (eat a meal; take a meal)

eat (take in solid food)

eat (take in food; used of animals only)

 Context examples 

To be done prior to eating lunch.

(Before Lunch, NCI Thesaurus)

He was eating, but he received them with respect and seated them according to their rank.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

She had discovered the china plate from which she was eating.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The study of the genetic factors of behavioral phenotypes such as eating or mating activity, substance abuse, social attitudes, violence, and mental abilities.

(Behavioral Genetics, NCI Thesaurus)

Martin went into the kitchen with a sinking heart, the image of her red face and slatternly form eating its way like acid into his brain.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

To be done prior to eating dinner.

(Before Dinner, NCI Thesaurus)

It may also be possible to catch bird flu by eating poultry or eggs that are not well cooked or through contact with a person who has it.

(Bird Flu, NIH)

You get it from eating raw or undercooked poultry.

(Campylobacter Infections, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Symptoms include loss of speech, trouble swallowing and eating, loss of balance, trouble walking, loss of muscle tone, mood swings, and changes in personality.

(Cerebellar mutism syndrome, NCI Dictionary)