chew
pronunciation
How to pronounce chew in British English:
UK [tʃuː]
How to pronounce chew in American English:
US [tʃuː]
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- Noun:
- a wad of something chewable as tobacco
- biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow
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- Verb:
- chew (food)
Word Origin
- chew
- chew: [OE] Chew, and its Germanic relatives German kauen and Dutch kauwen, can be traced back to a prehistoric West Germanic *kewwan. It has relatives in other Indo-European languages, including Latin gingīva ‘gum’ (source of English gingivitis).=> gingivitis
- chew (v.)
- Old English ceowan "to bite, gnaw, chew," from West Germanic *keuwwan (cognates: Middle Low German keuwen, Dutch kauwen, Old High German kiuwan, German kauen), from PIE root *gyeu- "to chew" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic živo "to chew," Lithuanian žiaunos "jaws," Persian javidan "to chew"). Figurative sense of "to think over" is from late 14c.; to chew the rag "discusss some matter" is from 1885, apparently originally British army slang. Related: Chewed; chewing. To chew (someone) out (1948) probably is military slang from World War II. Chewing gum is by 1843, American English, originally hardened secretions of the spruce tree.
- chew (n.)
- c. 1200, "an act of chewing," from chew (v.). Meaning "wad of tobacco chewed at one time" is from 1725; as a kind of chewy candy, by 1906.
Example
- 1. Train toddlers to chew their food thoroughly before swallowing .
- 2. May : do you know how many people chew gum everyday ?
- 3. Apparently even the chew toys hadn 't worked .
- 4. Something to chew over , along with pizzas , in flash offices in mumbai .
- 5. I must chew slowly and thoroughly .