eating

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of eat.

   Several guests were still eating when the speeches began.

   Eating together each night keeps the family close.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (they were eating), and as a gerund it names the activity while keeping its verb habits, so it takes a direct object: eating fruit, eating a meal. That makes "eating apples" ambiguous: a gerund with its object, or the bred-for-the-table adjective before a noun. The form also carries eat's ergative use, as in these pears are eating well.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of taking food into the body by swallowing it.

   Doctors recommend mindful eating to prevent overeating at meals.

   Eating became uncomfortable for her after the dental surgery.

   Oppositefasting

   Note

   An old noun in its own right, from Middle English etynge and Old English eting. As a noun it takes the and links its object with of: Harry E. Wedeck's Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs (1961) writes of "the eating of mushrooms." The gerund skips the article and the of, as in eating mushrooms. Both are correct, but the noun sounds more formal.

3. 3
   adjective

   Bred for the purpose of being eaten.

   An eating apple is bred for crisp sweetness rather than for baking.

   These eating pears ripen to a soft, juicy texture.

   Oppositecooking

   Note

   A word from the farmyard and the larder: eating chickens, eating quails, birds raised for the table. It always stands before the noun it sorts, dividing a breed by its purpose. It is easily blurred with the fruit sense, which concerns whether something needs cooking rather than why it was raised.

4. 4
   adjective

   Suitable for eating without being cooked first.

   Greengrocers shelve the eating apples separately from those meant for stewing.

   This is an eating variety, sweet enough to need no cooking.

   Oppositecooking

   Note

   This is the fruit-bowl sense: an eating apple goes straight from hand to mouth, while its counterpart has to be stewed or baked first. The phrase often turns up as a warning (that's not an eating apple), and it does not grade. An apple is an eating apple or it is not, never a more eating one.

5. 5
   noundialectaluncountable

   Food; cooking or cuisine.

   The smokehouse turns out some of the best eating in the valley.

   Those river trout were mighty fine eating that summer.

   Similarfood, fare, cooking, cuisine

   Note

   Here the word turns from the act to the food itself, and it is a homely, regional way of speaking. It lives almost entirely in praise: good eating, really good eating, said of a dish, a meal or a fruit (these pears are good eating). It suits warm conversation and folksy prose. In formal writing, food or cuisine is the safer choice.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The act of corroding or wearing away a substance.

   Engineers worried about the eating of the hull by saltwater corrosion.

   The constant eating of the riverbank by the current widened the channel.

   Similarcorrosion, erosion, wearing

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