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.

---

noun

1. gourmandise.

gormandize British  

verb

1. to eat (food) greedily and voraciously

---

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

It’s too hot to gormandize; I wasn’t astonished when he collapsed at the steep 71 place on the last walk.

From The Long Portage by Bindloss, Harold

On examination, he found that he had spent enough for provisions on which to gormandize to have lasted eight months, and yet he had been on the route but two and a half months.

From Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent by Headley, Joel Tyler

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

Once a year, at the village club dinner, they gormandize to repletion.

From The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies by Besant, Walter, Sir

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

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 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 by Reade, Charles

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 Lynch, Lawrence L.

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Clumsy, gormandizing clowns, fond of practical jokes, especially such as stealing eatables and drinkables.

From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham

Or what would it think of civilized man if it saw him shooting myriads of tame and harmless pigeons for amusement, or broiling lobsters alive to satisfy his gormandizing desires?

From Born Again by Lawson, Alfred

He was one of countless individuals marked for a tidbit to glut the gormandizing of a trust.

From Making People Happy by Fisher, Harrison

"Pig, bullock, goose, must have their goblins too, Else ours would have to go without their dinners: If that starvation doctrine were but true, How hard the fate of gormandizing sinners!"

From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by Alger, William Rounseville