To eat means to put food in your mouth, chew it, and swallow it so your body can use it for energy and growth. Every living thing needs to eat something: you eat breakfast before school, your dog eats kibble from its bowl, and even plants “eat” by absorbing nutrients from soil and using sunlight to make their own food.

Eating is one of the most basic and important things you do every day. When you eat an apple, your body breaks it down and turns it into fuel for running, thinking, and growing. Different animals eat in different ways: birds peck at seeds, whales gulp enormous mouthfuls of water to filter out tiny shrimp, and snakes can swallow their prey whole.

The word has other meanings too. Something can eat away at a surface, like how rust slowly eats away at metal or waves eat away at a cliff over thousands of years. If something is eating at you, it means a worry or problem keeps bothering you. When you have a big project due, the deadline might start eating at you as it gets closer.