chew

To chew is to break food up with your teeth before you swallow it. Twenty bites of a tough steak, a child chewing slowly to put off bedtime, a dog working at a bone in the corner.

You can chew things you never intend to swallow: gum, a pencil, a fingernail. Chewy is the adjective for food that fights back, like chewy bread and chewy caramel, and a chew is the rubber bone you buy to keep a dog busy. In the mind, to chew something over is to think it through slowly, and to chew the fat is to sit and talk about nothing much. Bite off more than you can chew is the warning about taking on too much. In American English, to chew someone out is to tell them off loudly.

Phrases it lives in

• chew something over — To think slowly and carefully about something before deciding.
• chew the fat — To chat in a long, relaxed way about nothing important.
• bite off more than you can chew — To take on more work or difficulty than you can manage.