Etymologically
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chew

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Pronunciation

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
  • 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