Chewing
noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The act by which something is chewed on; mastication. countable, uncountable
"And while the dog and the cat buses suffered considerable damage from the trapped animals' excretions, clawings, and chewings, the bus with the skunk was declared unsalvageable."
- 2 biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow wordnet
- 3 The consumption of (the juice from) the khat plant. countable, uncountable
- 4 The consumption of loose leaf tobacco juice from tobacco plants by chewing leaves near the cheek. countable, uncountable
- 1 present participle and gerund of chew form-of, gerund, participle, present
"The goat is chewing on your shirt!"
Example
More examples"The rooms in this hotel are really very bad at muffling sounds. I can hear my neighbor chewing his gum!"
Etymology
From Middle English chewynge, chewand, from Old English *ċēowende, from Proto-Germanic *kewwandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *kewwaną (“to chew”), equivalent to chew + -ing.
From Middle English chewyng, chewynge, from Old English ċīwung, ċȳwung, ċēowung (“chewing”), equivalent to chew + -ing.
Related phrases
More for "chewing"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.