December 9, 1997

crow, eat

What is the origin of "eat crow" or "eating crow," and exactly what does it mean?

To eat crow means 'to suffer humiliation', and specifically 'to be forced to admit to having made an error, as by retracting an emphatic statement'. An example from the mystery writer "Ellery Queen" in 1930: "I should merely be making an ass of myself if I accused someone and then had to eat crow."

Crows are notoriously disagreeable birds, in every respect. Scavengers, they are not suitable for eating. An old joke among outdoorsmen holds that if you get lost in the woods without any food and manage to catch a crow, you should put it in a pot with one of your boots, boil it for a week, and then eat the boot. Eating crow, therefore, is an especially unpleasant and humiliating thing to have to do.

The expression to eat crow is surprisingly recent. It is originally and still chiefly an Americanism, first found in the mid nineteenth century. The original form was to eat boiled crow.