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

And others enjoy themselves and gormandize themselves with our labor; and they hold us like dogs on chains, in ignorance.

From Mother by Maksim Gorky

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

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 The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

In that stronghold of gluttony, he gormandized more than ever, and, being unable to talk it off his stomach, as in other cities, had apoplexy, and died.

From A Simpleton by Charles Reade

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

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

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

But Rose shopped and gormandized and enjoyed her healthy animal life.

From The Lost Lady of Lone by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

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

From Time Magazine Archive

This gormandizing Abbé de Voisenon, ever hanging, as it were, between pâtés and his grave, becomes now a rather interesting subject of study.

From The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 by Various

That she should have any affection for the doddering, gormandizing old man--he was nearly fifty--was hardly to be expected.

From Roman Women by Alfred Brittain

Her voice held all the glee of a gormandizing child.

From Revelations of a Wife The Story of a Honeymoon by Adele Garrison

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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