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

Etymology

Origin of gormandize

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

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

Its walls are thin and yielding, and may become unnaturally distended, as in the case of those who subsist on a bulky, innutritious diet, and of those who habitually gormandize.

From A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene For Educational Institutions and General Readers by Hutchison, Joseph Chrisman

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 McElroy, John

Singers also are proverbially prone to gormandize; and though the Bird of Paradise unfortunately possessed the smallest mouth in all Singingland, it is astonishing how she pecked!

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 4 by Mabie, Hamilton Wright

V. eat, feed, fare, devour, swallow, take; gulp, bolt, snap; fall to; despatch, dispatch; discuss; take down, get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in*; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c.

From Roget's Thesaurus by Roget, Peter Mark

The signoras and signorinas fell upon them and gormandized; but the signors eyed them with reasonable suspicion.

From The Cloister and the Hearth by Reade, Charles

The signoras, and signorinas, fell upon them and gormandized; but the signors eyed them with reasonable suspicion.

From The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Reade, Charles

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 Parton, James

The first day among the hills was spent like the first one on shore—without food, although they had so gormandized themselves on the preceding evening that they were able to stand this privation much better.

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

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 Ralph, Julian

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

This fairy tale of a gormandizing people contains no mention of Thanksgiving Day.

From Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know by Dickinson, Asa Don

The Knights of the Toast were an associated group. The gridiron is a symbol both of gormandizing and of the roasting of Saint Lawrence.

From A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) [and] Pudding and Dumpling Burnt to Pot. Or a Compleat Key to the Dissertation on Dumpling (1727) by Macey, Samuel L.

"At all events, you might have brought away my epaulettes," replied he; "but you youngsters think of nothing but gormandizing."

From Peter Simple; and, The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 by Marryat, Frederick