Dictionary

rechew en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Latin re-der. Old French re-bor. Middle English re- English re- English chew English rechew From re- + chew.

Meanings

1. To chew again.
   • Nor could He (as some Beasts rechew their meat, To cause the same the better to disgest) Rechew this Bread, 1609, John Davies, The Holy Roode, London: N. Butter:
   • When nibbling Sheep at large pursue their Food, And unmolested Kine rechew the Cud; 1713, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, “A Nocturnal Reverie”, in Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions, London: J.B, page 292:
   • The harder Small sang, the harder the cow chewed and the faster she twiddled her ears around as if stirring the song into the food to be rechewed in cud along with her breakfast. 1942, Emily Carr, “Singing”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:
   • The sailor now drew from the receptacle just named a dirty piece of folded paper, deeply impregnated with the perfume of stale and oft rechewed quids of coarse tobacco; 1832, John Richardson, chapter 12, in Wacousta, volume 2, London: T. Cadell, page 316:
2. (figuratively) To go over or ponder again.
   • […] his disease is mostly impatience with contemporary trends in art and literature that have passed him by. And so he rechews the classics, “which those ignorant fellows never bothered to read,” […] 1989, Claire Nicolas White, chapter 17, in Fragments of Stained Glass, San Francisco: Mercury House, page 168:
   • His mind insisted on rechewing its doubts, rather than engage in constructive thought. 1941, Robert A. Heinlein, “They”, in Rod Serling’s Other Worlds, New York: Bantam, published 1978, page 17:
   • By noon on that first day, the networks had run out of new information. Drained of every fresh fact, they went right on reporting anyway, chewing and rechewing the same small chunks of news. 2012, Karen Thompson Walker, chapter 3, in The Age of Miracles, New York: Random House, page 14:

Forms

Relateds

cud · ruminate

Synonyms

remasticate

Translations (6)

fr remâcher (go over again) · fr remâcher (chew again) · ga athchogain (chew again) · it rimasticare (chew again) · eo remaĉi (chew again) · it rimasticare (go over again)