gormandize

American  

[gawr-muhn-dahyz, gawr-muhn-deez] / ˈgɔr mənˌdaɪz, ˌgɔr mənˈdiz /

especially British, gormandise

verb (used with or without object)

gormandized, gormandizing

1. to eat greedily or ravenously.

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noun

1. gourmandise.

gormandize British  

verb

1. to eat (food) greedily and voraciously

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noun

1. a less common variant of gourmandise

Other Word Forms

• gormandizer
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of gormandize

1540–50; < French gourmandise (noun), equivalent to Middle French gourmand gourmand + -ise noun suffix later taken as v. suffix -ize

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Explanation

To gormandize is to eat lots and lots of really tasty food. If your idea of a perfect night out is an enormous meal at a fancy restaurant, then you love to gormandize. Although gormandize comes from the Middle French word gourmand, it's not related to the similar-looking gourmet. While a gourmet is someone who enjoys fine food, a person who tends to gormandize also loves delicious fare, but puts the emphasis on quantity. So a few bites of sashimi or foie gras might make you a gourmet, but eating them until you feel sick is gormandizing.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gormandize gormandized gormandizing

Hawaiian oranges were delicious, although "I seldom eat more than 10 or 15 at a sitting, however, because I despise to see anybody gormandize."

From Time Magazine Archive

Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge, The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio: What, Jessica!—thou shalt not gormandize, As thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!—

From Shakespeare's play of the Merchant of Venice Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre, with Historical and Explanatory Notes by Charles Kean, F.S.A. by Charles John Kean

Indeed, very frequently when he did not get permission to gormandize, this naughty glutton helped himself without leave.

From Holiday House A Series of Tales by Catherine Sinclair

What title to gormandize over the butcher's fat joints, and the baker's quartern loaves, if they who furnish them are left to gnaw bones, and live upon crumbs?

From The Wanderer (Volume 2 of 5) or, Female Difficulties by Fanny Burney

And how I gormandize on hardtack baked in the first place for the Revolutioners, and kept over ever since.

From Si Klegg, Book 3 (of 6) Si And Shorty Meet Mr. Rosenbaum, The Spy, Who Relates His Adventures by John McElroy

Even a very rich and hearty luncheon, which her maid had provided, was gormandized rather than enjoyed, so tempting did her couch look to the worn-out damsel.

From Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch

They jess sot thar, an' gormandized on waffles an' batter-cakes, an' didn't call no names.

From Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches by Joel Chandler Harris

Squirrels sat upon the logs near by and gormandized and chattered.

From On Canada's Frontier Sketches of History, Sport, and Adventure and of the Indians, Missionaries, Fur-traders, and Newer Settlers of Western Canada by Julian Ralph

He never drank to excess, nor gormandized, nor gambled, nor even smoked, nor in any other way wasted the vitality needed for a long and tough grapple with adverse fortune.

From Famous Americans of Recent Times by James Parton

The pieces were of a generous size, and after all three had gormandized themselves until, absolutely, they could contain no more, each had some left.

From Adrift in the Wilds or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys by Edward Sylvester Ellis

The author of this hedonistic, gormandizing prayer is a Christian clergyman of serene faith.

From Time Magazine Archive

But, amid gormandizing, Serlo entertained another plan, which he longed to have fulfilled.

From Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. I (of 2) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Shakespeare warns you to make thy body less, hence thy grace more; leave gormandizing, and know that the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.

From Diet and Health With Key to the Calories by Lulu Hunt Peters

The bourgeoisie were gormandizing on the solemn ruins of the Church which had become a place of rendez-vous, a mass of rubbish, soiled by petty puns and scandalous jests.

From Against the Grain by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

A distemper broke out amongst his horned stock, and before a month passed, destroyed every thing in his stalls, with the exception of an old goat and a gormandizing and insatiable porker.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 346, August, 1844 by Various

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