Talk:eat

et

I think, past tense and past participle form et should be noted too. "Yer can't expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert." (J. R. R. Tolkien. The Hobbit) "Something I et?" (Richard Williams. The Animator's Survival Kit — p. 220) See et for more uses. Alone Coder 21:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

"eat" as obsolete simple past tense

I've noticed there are plenty of good examples of this in Fielding's Tom Jones. Equinox ◑ 01:14, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Why did someone find it necessary to write out a whole conjugation table for an English verb?

Look, we got a present form, a simple past form, and a past participle. It doesn't need to get any more complex than that.

 Done I can't see any conjugation table here any more. Equinox ◑ 12:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

What's going on with the translations

The first translation sense is 'eat', which directs us to consume. But then the next sense is itself 'consume'! And sense given at 'consume' is 'eat'. Oughtn't the first two translation senses for eat be merged? And I feel like eat is the more basic term, so wouldn't it make more sense for the translations be listed here, rather than at consume? It all just seems odd to me. Coreydragon (talk) 09:01, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Floors one can eat off

"You could eat off the floor", "floors you could eat off", etc.: a common colloquial phrase to describe floors that are very clean. Not sure if we could include this somehow: what would the lemma be? Equinox ◑ 04:16, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

eat a bullet

i.e. commit suicide by (shot)gun:

1. • 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

     And, of course, there was Brian Rusk, who had eaten a bullet at the ripe old age of eleven.

Equinox ◑ 12:26, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done Equinox ◑ 16:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Does this refer especially or exclusively to be shot (punched, etc) in the mouth or at least head? I think it might. I can also find talk of someone eating a fist, btw, or eating a kick (or should that be another sense?). Incidentally, isn't the sense of "take a loss" broader than its current label of "business" would suggest? E.g. if someone insults or injures somebody, he could decide to just eat it and not respond (it's hard to find clear examples though, given how common the other senses are). - -sche (discuss) 19:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Weapon in the mouth: probably; okay. Taking a loss sense: suck it up is another oral metaphor for this. Equinox ◑ 20:54, 6 February 2020 (UTC)