Chewing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of using the teeth and jaws to crush and break down food into smaller pieces for easier consumption and digestion
2. An action involving rhythmic jaw movements that reduce food particles into manageable sizes for swallowing and digestion
3. The act of moving the jaws and teeth repeatedly to break food into smaller portions to aid swallowing and digestion

Etymology: The verb "chew" goes back to a Proto-Germanic root, "kewwaną", meaning simply "to chew", and it is one of those ordinary words that English has kept almost unchanged for well over a thousand years. The noun-making ending "-ing" is much older than the verb it is attached to here. In Old English, speakers already had forms like "ċīwung" and "ċēowende" that named the act of chewing, so "chewing" was not a later invention built from the verb but a word that the language had been using from its earliest recorded stages. The surprise lies in the ending itself. "-ing" once marked a noun formed from a verb, so "chewing" was originally a thing done rather than a grammatical form. Over the centuries the ending came to serve several roles, which is why the same spelling appears in nouns like "building" and in forms of verbs. Here, though, the word has stayed close to its original job: it names the continuous action of crushing food with the teeth and jaws.

Synonyms: masticating, gnawing, biting, nibbling, chomping

Antonyms: swallowing, gulping, ingesting