Englisheat crow pie
Meaning: To humble oneself because one has been proved wrong.
Example: “After predicting the team would lose every game, the columnist had to eat crow pie.”
Origin: A variant of the older "eat crow," whose exact origin is unknown but is generally traced to an American humor story from around 1850, about a New York farmer near Lake Mahopac who boasted he could eat anything and was wagered a hat that he couldn't manage a crow. A rival account instead points to the War of 1812, with a British officer forcing an American soldier to eat part of a crow shot on British-held ground. Either way the bird was the right choice for the joke: a carrion-eater, and one of the birds Leviticus lists as unfit to eat, so swallowing it stands in neatly for swallowing pride along with it.
More English idioms
- fly the coop To escape.
- get off one's high horse To stop acting superior.
- get someone's goat To irritate or annoy someone.
- go whole hog To spare nothing; to do something with maximum enthusiasm.
- grin and bear it To accept or endure a bad situation.
- horse around To play a little roughly.
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