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by Kate Woodford

It’s been a while since we published a phrasal verb post on this blog, so we’re making amends with this round-up of phrasal verbs relating to a subject that most of us are interested in – eating.

Let’s start with phrasal verbs that convey where we eat. You probably already know eat out, meaning ‘eat in a restaurant’, but you can also say that you eat in, meaning ‘have a meal at home’. And if you order prepared food to be brought to your home, you (UK) order it in or (US) order out for it:

I thought we’d eat out this evening. / Shall we go out for dinner, or would you prefer to eat in?

We could order in a pizza. / Let’s order out for a pizza.  

Other phrasal verbs say something about how much we eat. The informal phrase put away means ‘eat a large amount of food’ and tends to be used when commenting on someone who habitually eats a lot:

He can put away two whole pizzas with no trouble. / For a slim person she can certainly put it away!

‘Pig out’ is another informal phrase in this area. If you pig out, you eat a large quantity of food on one occasion:

I pigged out on chicken and fries last night.

If you eat something up, you eat all the food that you have been given. This phrase is often said to children, when encouraging them to eat:

Come on now, Alfie, eat up your vegetables!

Meanwhile, if someone polishes off food, they eat all of it or they finish what is left of it. It suggests they do this quickly and enthusiastically:

The boys will polish that off in no time. / Dan polished off what was left of the curry.

Other phrasal verbs describe the speed at which we eat. If you wolf down food, you eat a lot of it very quickly and hungrily. The phrasal verb pick at, meanwhile, means the opposite. Someone who picks at their food eats slowly, eating very little of what is on their plate and showing no interest in it:

I gave her a bowl of curry and she wolfed it down.

She didn’t seem hungry and just picked at her salad.

If you dig in, you start eating and in UK English, if you tuck in or tuck into food, you start eating with enthusiasm:

The food’s getting cold so dig in!

Do tuck in while it’s hot! / They were just tucking into a big, cooked breakfast in the kitchen.

Finally, if someone only or mainly eats a particular type of food, you might comment that they live on it:

He practically lives on chicken and rice.

That concludes my post on phrasal verbs for eating. I hope it hasn’t made you too hungry!