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

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 Peter Mark Roget

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 Hamilton Wright Mabie

Moreover, the father betrays certain tendencies to gormandize not altogether in harmony with the profession of an ascetic….

From Two Years in the French West Indies by Lafcadio Hearn

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

At that time he preferred serving food to being a viand for those who gormandized oddities.

From An Apostate: Nawin of Thais by Steven (Steven David Justin) Sills

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

From The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade

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 Edward Sylvester Ellis

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

From Time Magazine Archive

"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 Frederick Marryat

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

He wore away our forks and spoons With hard, incessant gormandizing; The Baker's, and, for some blue moons, The Milkman's bill were quite surprising.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, October 1, 1892 by Various

"We were only waiting for you to finish gormandizing."

From The Leader of the Lower School A Tale of School Life by John Campbell

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