chew

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English chewen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English ċēowan (“to chew, gnaw, eat”),^[5][6][2][7] a strong verb with past tense ċēaw and past participle cowen.^[5][7] It comes from Proto-West Germanic *keuwan,^[8][6][9] from Proto-Germanic *kewwaną,^[8][10][11] and is cognate with Middle Low German keuwen, Dutch kauwen, Old High German kiuwan and German kauen,^[5][6][3][9] and with Old Norse tyggva, whose initial t Kroonen explains by dissimilation.^[10][3] Outside Germanic, Barnhart and Wiktionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *ǵyewh₁- (“to chew”),^[3][8] which Etymonline gives only as a possibility;^[6] the cognates include Lithuanian žiaunos (“jaws”), Persian جویدن (javidan, “to chew”) and Tocharian B śuwā- (“to eat”),^[6][3][11] and probably Latin gingīva (“gum”), the source of gingivitis.^[12][13][14] The original strong past forms did not survive into Middle English, and the verb has been weak since the 14th century.^[5][9] The noun, recorded from about 1200, is from the verb;^[6][5] the OED notes that the 12th-century icheu may go back to an Old English noun.^[5] chaw is a variant.^[13][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

To crush and grind with the teeth, and in early use often to gnaw: Old English, in Ælfric's homilies, where a man is ordered to gnaw his fingers with his teeth.^[5][7][3] Old English also used it of animals chewing the cud.^[7] Barnhart dates the Middle English form to before 1200, in the Ormulum.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English and early Middle English the word was used figuratively, of chewing over God's commandments by meditating on them;^[7][5] the OED's first record of this sense is from the Ormulum (about 1175).^[5] The specific sense of masticating food before swallowing is quoted from Langland's Piers Plowman in 1377.^[5] From the 16th century one could chew on advice or statements, considering them carefully, and plans from 1600;^[5] Etymonline dates the general sense "to think over" to the late 14th century.^[6] In Lincolnshire and Lancashire dialect chew and chew at still meant to meditate on something in the 19th century.^[16] Johnson (1755) noted that the word was very often pronounced chaw.^[17] Slang added to chew the rag or chew the fat, to discuss, grumble or chat, from 1885, apparently first British army slang,^[5][6] and to chew someone out, to scold, probably World War II military slang, recorded from 1948.^[6] In American slang chew also meant simply to eat, from 1850.^[18] The noun, the act of chewing, dates from about 1200;^[6][5] a quid of tobacco is a chew from 1725,^[6][5] and a chewy sweet by 1906.^[6] chewing gum is recorded by 1843 in American English, at first for hardened spruce resin.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1000 – to chew, gnaw, eat, in Ælfric.^[5][3]
• c. 1175 – figurative, to meditate on, in the Ormulum.^[5]
• c. 1200 – noun, the act of chewing.^[5][6]
• 1377 – to masticate food, in Piers Plowman.^[5]
• 1600 – to plan or devise deliberately.^[5]
• 1725 – noun, a quid of tobacco.^[5][6]
• 1843 – chewing gum.^[6]
• 1885 – to chew the rag, to discuss or grumble.^[5][6]
• 1948 – to chew out, to scold.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bite and grind food in the mouth with the teeth; to masticate: He chewed each mouthful slowly.^[14][2][5]
2. To bite at something repeatedly: The puppy chewed the leg of the table.^[14][2]
3. To damage or destroy something as if by chewing.^[2]
4. To use chewing tobacco.^[14]
5. chew over or chew on: to think about something carefully; to ponder.^[5][6]
6. chew out: (slang) to scold someone severely.^[2][6]
7. chew the fat or chew the rag: (slang) to chat or gossip; also, to argue or grumble.^[14][5]

Noun

1. An act of chewing.^[14][2][5]
2. Something that is chewed, especially a quid of tobacco.^[14][2][5]
3. A chewy sweet or candy.^[2][5][19]

Word family

• chewable
• chewer
• chewy
• chewing gum
• chew out
• chew over
• chewing tobacco

Related words

• chaw
• gingivitis

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
19. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press