chew.
To crush with the teeth by repeated closing and opening of the jaws; done to food to soften it and break it down by the action of saliva before it is swallowed.
Meaning & usage
To crush with the teeth by repeated closing and opening of the jaws; done to food to soften it and break it down by the action of saliva before it is swallowed.
Make sure to chew thoroughly, and don't talk with your mouth full!
The steak was tough to chew as it had been cooked too long.
To grind, tear, or otherwise degrade or demolish something with teeth or as with teeth.
He keeps his feed in steel drums to prevent the mice from chewing holes in the feed-sacks.
The harsh desert wind and sand had chewed the stump into ragged strips of wood.
The condition of something being torn or ground up mechanically.
To think about something; to ponder; to chew over.
The professor stood at the blackboard, chalk in hand, and chewed the question the student had asked.
To chew tobacco.
To reduce cancer risk, it is best that you neither chew nor smoke.
He'd been chewing for many years by the time he first noticed some white plaques on his oral mucosa.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English chewen, from Old English ċēowan, from Proto-West Germanic *keuwan, from Proto-Germanic *kewwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵyewh₁-. Cognate with West Frisian kôgje, Low German käwwen, Dutch kauwen, German kauen; also Latin gingīva (“gums”), Tocharian B śuwaṃ (“to eat”), Polish żuć (“to chew”), Persian جویدن (javidan), Pashto ژُوَل (žovạl, “to bite, gnaw”).
The act of chewing; mastication with the mouth.
I popped the gum into my mouth and gave it a chew.
Level of chewiness.
A small sweet, such as a taffy, that is eaten by chewing.
Phillip purchased a bag of licorice chews at the drugstore.
Chewing tobacco.
The school had banned chew and smokes from the school grounds, even for adults.
A plug or wad of chewing tobacco; chaw or a chaw.
The ballplayers sat on the bench watching the rain, glumly working their chews.
The first time he chewed tobacco, he swallowed his chew and got extremely sick.
The condition of something being torn or ground up mechanically.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English chew, cheu, icheu, from Old English *ċēaw, *ġeċēaw (“chewing”), from Proto-West Germanic *kauw, *gakauw (“chewing”), from Proto-Germanic *kewwaną (“to chew”). Cognate with obsolete Dutch kauw (“chewing”), Dutch gekauw (“chewing”), West Frisian gekau (“chewing”).
Try it on your idea.
chew has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.