To ingest means to take something into your body, usually by swallowing it. When you ingest food or water, you're consuming it so your body can use it for energy and nutrition. The word sounds more scientific than simply saying “eat” or “drink,” and you'll often hear it in contexts involving science, medicine, or safety.

A doctor might ask what medications a patient has ingested that day. A science teacher explaining digestion might describe how your body ingests nutrients. Warning labels tell you not to ingest cleaning products because they're poisonous if swallowed. Scientists studying animals describe what different species ingest: koalas ingest eucalyptus leaves, while blue whales ingest thousands of tiny krill.

The word can apply to anything taken into the body through the mouth, whether it's helpful (like vitamins), necessary (like water), or dangerous (like toxins). While “eat” and “drink” work fine in everyday conversation, ingest is especially useful when you need to be precise about something entering your digestive system, or when you want to sound more formal or scientific.