to put food in your mouth, chew it, and swallow it; to have a meal
Babies learn to eat solid food around six months.
Please eat your vegetables before dessert.
✦ Old English etan, from Proto-Germanic *etaną, related to German essen and Dutch eten.
doing the action of taking food into your mouth, chewing it, and swallowing it
The baby is eating mashed bananas with her hands.
I saw a squirrel eating a pine cone on the fence.
to use up or consume something such as time, money, or resources
The new software eats up a lot of memory.
Repairs are eating into our savings.
for a substance such as rust, acid, or mold to gradually destroy or wear away something solid
Rust had eaten holes in the metal fence.
The acid ate through the plastic container.
to pay for something that will give someone pleasure, such as a meal or tickets
Let me treat you to dinner tonight to celebrate your promotion.
Grandpa treated all the grandchildren to ice cream at the park.
an act of paying for someone else’s food, drink, or entertainment
You bought lunch last time, so today is my treat.
Thanks for the movie ticket—it was a nice treat.
a regular rhythm or pulse in music that you can count or dance to
The DJ mixed a new beat that made everyone dance.
Clap to the beat so we stay together.
warmth produced by a heater, stove, or burner, or the level of such warmth used when cooking
The old house lost its heat during the icy night.
She set the stove to low heat to let the soup simmer.
culinary: to cook food gently in a little oil or butter so that it releases moisture without browning
First, sweat the onions in a little olive oil until they turn translucent.
The recipe says to sweat the vegetables instead of frying them.
