Choose the correct meaning of idiom: Eat crow

Correct — D. Eat crow means to be forced to admit that you were wrong, and to accept the humiliation that comes with it.

A memory hook: you are made to swallow something unpleasant, and the unpleasant thing is your own mistake.

That is Admit one’s error and endure humiliation → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Enjoy luxurious food — Literal-food trap. Nothing in the idiom is about enjoying a meal. What you 'eat' is your own mistake, and the feeling is embarrassment, not pleasure.
• (b)
  Give lavish charity — Give lavish charity has no link to the idiom. Eat crow is about losing face after being proved wrong, not about giving anything away.
• (c)
  Suffer physical punishment — Physical punishment is the wrong kind of suffering. The humiliation in eat crow comes from having to admit you were wrong, not from any bodily harm.

An idiom means more than its words. Eat crow says nothing about food: it describes backing down after being proved wrong, and the loss of face that goes with it.

Two close relatives share the idea. Eat humble pie is to apologise humbly and accept humiliation. Eat your words is to take back something you said.

Here the literal reading (food, a luxury meal) is a distractor, so read past the noun to what the phrase does to the speaker.

Key facts

• Eat crow: to be forced to admit you were wrong and accept the humiliation.
• Eat humble pie: to apologise humbly and accept humiliation.
• Eat your words: to take back something you said.

Common traps

• Picking the food option because the idiom contains the verb eat.
• Picking physical punishment because humiliation feels like a penalty, when the idiom's penalty is loss of face.

No directly related past PYQ was found.