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To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread. "To eat grass as oxen." Dan. iv. 25. They . . . ate the sacrifices of the dead. Ps. cvi. 28. The lean . . . did eat up the first seven fat kine. Gen. xli. 20. The lion had not eaten the carcass. 1 Kings xiii. 28. With stori…

Given to eating; voracious; devouring. Swallowed in the depths of edacious Time. Carlyle. -- E*da"cious*ly, adv. -- E*da"cious*ness, n.

hose who founded their practice on experience called themselves empirics. Krauth-Fleming. Swallow down opinions as silly people do empirics' pills. Locke.

To swallow or gulp down. [Obs.] Shak.

To swallow with greediness or in large quantities; to devour. Spenser.

Swallowed with greediness, or in large draughts.

The act of swallowing greedily; a devouring with voracity; a glutting.

Partly swallowed; disappearing in the jaws of anything; as, an infant engouled by a serpent; said also of an ordinary, when its two ends to issue from the mouths of lions, or the like; as, a bend engouled.

To absorb or swallow up as in a gulf. It quite engulfs all human thought. Young.

A swallowing up as if in a gulf. [R.]

ible; as, esculent plants; esculent fish. Esculent grain for food. Sir W. Jones. Esculent swallow (Zoöl.), the swallow which makes the edible bird's- nest. See Edible bird's-nest, under Edible.

Exasperated; imbittered. [Obs.] Shak. Like swallows which the exasperate dying year Sets spinning. Mrs. Browning.

Dryden. Fairy bird (Zoöl.), the Euoropean little tern (Sterna minuta); -- called also sea swallow, and hooded tern. -- Fairy bluebird. (Zoöl.) See under Bluebird. -- Fairy martin (Zoöl.), a European swallow (Hirrundo ariel) that builds flask-shaped nests of mud on overhanging cliffs. -- Fairy rings or circles, the c…

That which is false; falsehood; a lie; a false assertion. Men often swallow falsities for truths. Sir T. Brown.

which is feasible; as, before we adopt a plan, let us consider its feasibility. Men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, possibilities for feasibilities. Sir T. Browne.

Having the bill cleft beyond the horny part, as in the case of swallows and goatsuckers.

A game in which the players catch raisins out burning brandy, and swallow them blazing. Johnson.

anguage; as, fluent speech. With most fluent utterance. Denham. Fluent as the flight of a swallow is the sultan's letter. De Quincey.

Having the outer tail feathers longer than the median ones; swallow-tailed; -- said of many birds. Fork-tailed flycatcher (Zoöl.), a tropical American flycatcher (Milvulus tyrannus). -- Fork-tailed gull (Zoöl.), a gull of the genus Xema, of two species, esp. X. Sabinii of the Arctic Ocean. -- Fork-tailed kite (Zoöl.)…

To pen or part widely; to exhibit a gap, fissure, or hiatus. May that ground gape and swallow me alive! Shak.