ingest
Americanverb (used with object)
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ingests,
present (3rd person singular)
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ingested,
past participle, past
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ingesting
present participle
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to take, as food, into the body (opposed to egest).
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Aeronautics. to draw (foreign matter) into the inlet of a jet engine, often causing damage to the engine.
verb
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to take (food or liquid) into the body
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(of a jet engine) to suck in (an object, a bird, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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ingestionnoun
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reingestverb (used with object)
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ingestibleadjective
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ingestiveadjective
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uningestedadjective
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uningestiveadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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ingestsimple
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ingestssimple
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have ingestedperfect
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has ingestedperfect
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am ingestingprogressive
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are ingestingprogressive
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is ingestingprogressive
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have been ingestingperfect progressive
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has been ingestingperfect progressive
Past
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ingestedsimple
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had ingestedperfect
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was ingestingprogressive
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were ingestingprogressive
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had been ingestingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ingest
First recorded in 1610–20; from Latin ingestus, past participle of ingerere “to throw or pour into”; see in- 2, gest
Explanation
When you ingest something, you swallow it or otherwise consume it. If you don't ingest enough iron, you'll feel tired and weak and you'll look pale. Trees ingest carbon dioxide, and humans ingest the oxygen that trees in turn produce. We also ingest a lot of other things, like French fries, ice cream, and root beer. You can also use this word to mean "take in information," like when you ingest the details of your history book. Ingest has a Latin root, ingestus, "poured in," from in-, "into," and gerere, "to carry."
Vocabulary lists containing ingest
The Body Eclectic: Words For Common Physical Functions
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
The Smartest Kid in the Universe
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Iveliz Explains It All
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It found that balloons were 32 times more likely to result in death than when birds ingest hard plastic.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
They’d ingest all of your financial information into their software and would have checklists to make sure they got all the relevant information.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
We inhale and ingest them from almost everything we touch, breathe, eat and drink.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
This is the dark matter of nutrition – the compounds we ingest daily but haven’t been mapped or studied.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 17, 2026
If you ingest too much swainsonine you are bound to starve, no matter how much food you put into your stomach.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
The novel begins when Gelsomina ingests five parasitic worms after lapping up lake water.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
The reaction, called alpha-gal syndrome, occurs when an infected person eats beef, pork, venison or other meat from mammals - or ingests milk, gelatin or other mammal products.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 27, 2023
But there are other risk factors for TCE exposure, which occurs when a person breathes, ingests or touches the chemical.
From Seattle Times ● May 6, 2023
The level of exposure and the associated risk is dependent on how much erythritol one ingests.
From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2023
One ingests a horse-doctor's dose of words, but fails to acquire any illumination.
From A Book of Prefaces by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
This means only about 1% of the ingested drug is absorbed and able to exert its effects.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 8, 2026
But its usage — both in food and beverage products, along with ingested drugs — prevailed for over three decades.
From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2026
The ingested loot is set with 60 white diamonds and 15 blue sapphires, according to the jeweller's website, and opens to reveal an 18-carat gold miniature octopus.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2025
Partly because I was exhausted from the tryptophan I had ingested with my turkey the day before and could not get out of bed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
Most jockeys ingested every manner of laxative to purge their systems of food and water.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
A 2019 study by the University of Tasmania, published in Scientific Reports, found balloons were "the highest-risk plastic debris item" for seabirds, carrying a mortality risk 32 times higher than ingesting hard plastics.
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
The court documents relating to the Anthropic case revealed the project of ingesting old books was referred to in internal company communications as "Project Panama."
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Much depends on what’s raising your body temperature in the first place — if you have a fever due to an infection, for example, see a doctor rather than ingesting peppermint.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
It’s a position that has put Palantir at odds with leading AI labs, whom Karp has characterized as looking to “colonize” their customers by ingesting their business intelligence and proprietary data.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
The workers, who marked watch dials with luminous radium paint, customarily licked their brushes to a fine point, ingesting the radioactive substance.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
