to house = to eat

[Ben Zimmer]

If I had to guess, I'd say it's informed by the sense of "house"
meaning "destroy or defeat completely." This 2002 Urban Dictionary
entry for "housed" may help:

http://housed.urbanup.com/7158623
A shockingly complete and enthusiastic consumption.
- Laura musy have been hungry, she totally housed that meat.
- There is nothing left, Jess housed it all.

Cf. other ways of expressing voracious eating, e.g. "go to town on."

--bgz


On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 11:30 PM, Grant Barrett <grantbarrett at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A listener to the radio show came across “to house” meaning “to eat.”
>
> I see “house” v. in HDAS has “to take for oneself; steal,” which is a possible connection, but it seems a more straightforward “house” ‘to cover, shelter, or contain’ is more likely the source.
>
> Has anybody done any digging on it?
>
> Here are a few uses I came across (in poor citation form, I’m afraid).
>
> The tortilla strips are such a wonderful invention.  So much easier when you are at a party and don't want to house a whole chip in front of other people. Yelp 4/13/2009
>
> I am about to house an entire Guinness Pie at our holiday lunch at O'Connor's, one of my favorite restaurant. 12/16/2009
>
> About to house a whole Alfredo pizza to my self. 4/11/2010
>
> I am about to house a whole pizza. i got goals! 1/29/2011
>
> I was starving so I wanted to house a burger and fries. Yelp review, 3/18/2013
>
> to eat quickly, or to do
> Man, I just housed so much Burger King.
> Urban Dictionary, 4/17 2013
>
> I am going to house a burger at Smith and Wollenskys. 6/9/2013
>
> Grant Barrett
> grantbarrett at gmail.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org