eat up

British  

verb

1. (also intr) to eat or consume entirely: often used as an exhortation to children

2. informal to listen to with enthusiasm or appreciation

   the audience ate up the speaker's every word

3. informal (often passive) to affect grossly

   she was eaten up by jealousy

4. informal to travel (a distance) quickly

   we just ate up the miles

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eat up Idioms  

1. Consume completely, as in No television until you eat up your dinner , or This quarter's expenses have eaten up all my spare cash . The literal use (first example) dates from the early 1500s, the figurative from the early 1600s.

2. Enjoy avidly, as in She simply eats up the publicity . [Late 1800s]

3. Believe unquestioningly, be gullible, as in He'll eat up whatever the broker tells him . [ Slang ; early 1900s]

4. Defeat completely, as in This new fighter just eats up every opponent . [ Slang ; c. 1830]

5. See eat out , def. 2.

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Example Sentences

Petite and Black, with hundreds of tiny braids cascading down her back, she walked with unexpectedly long strides, eating up the pavement while looking straight ahead, body framed by late-afternoon summer sunlight.

From Literature

AI chips are the most precious commodity at any leading research lab, and at OpenAI, Sora was eating up far too many of them.

From The Wall Street Journal

That will eat up a lot of operating cash flow.

From Barron's

A newly minted dentist earns around $150,000 or more, but student loans eat up a lot of their take-home pay, especially in the early years.

From The Wall Street Journal

Higher gas prices will particularly squeeze lower- and middle-income Americans by eating up some of their extra cash.

From MarketWatch