Careful Words

eat (n.)

eat (v.)

eat (adj.)

And do as adversaries do in law,—

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 2.

  Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): How a Young Man ought to hear Poems. 4.

  Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we shall die.

Old Testament: Isaiah xxii. 13.

  By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat and eat, I swear.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.

  To eat, and to drink, and to be merry.

Old Testament: Ecclesiastes viii. 15; Luke xii. 19.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

I cannot eat but little meat,

My stomach is not good;

But sure I think that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.

Bishop Still (John) (1543-1607): Gammer Gurton's Needle. Act ii.

  Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Of the Training of Children.

  A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 3.

  Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink.

New Testament: Matthew vi. 25.

  He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some would eat that want it;

But we hae meat, and we can eat,

Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Grace before Meat.

Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?

George Herbert (1593-1632): The Size.

What more felicitie can fall to creature

Than to enjoy delight with libertie,

And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,

To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,

To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Muiopotmos: or, The Fate of the Butterflie. Line 209.

We must eat to live and live to eat.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754): The Miser. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,

That shall eat with a fend.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10916.

Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.

  I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.

Would yee both eat your cake and have your cake?

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.