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Glite Dictionary
to eat you for breakfast

to eat you for breakfast

1 8.4
Beat someone easily to show you are much better
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : derrotarte fácilmente
  • Even better, discuss them with Plimer; my bet is that he'd eat you for breakfast.

Examples

Synonyms

to eat (someone) for breakfast
vsto eat you for breakfast
  • Informal
4 8.3

Defeat someone easily without much effort

emphasizes superior skill and power rather than mere lack of effort
to eat my lunch
vsto eat you for breakfast
  • Informal
1 9.0

To beat someone and gain an advantage over them in competition

focuses on overwhelming someone through clear superior skill rather than exploiting openings
to eat someone's lunch
vsto eat you for breakfast
  • Informal
1 8.6

To beat someone in business by taking their customers and sales

applies generally to overpowering or overwhelming someone not only in business situations

Antonyms

to lose
∞ 1.0

Fail to win a game or contest

How Dominant

to destroy
  • Informal
557 1.7
to eat you for breakfast
  • Informal
1 8.4
to overwhelm
164 4.4
to defeat
932 2.1
to beat
∞ 1.4

Surface Forms

eat you for breakfast infinitive

Morphology

eat + you + for + breakfast

The literal words 'eat' + 'you' + 'for breakfast' evoke consumption and dominance, so a learner who knows the constituents can infer a threatening or aggressive sense. However, mapping that image to the conventional meaning 'to defeat or overwhelm someone easily' is a metaphorical extension that is not fully predictable without exposure and varies cross-linguistically, so it is only partially transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Eat you for breakfast comes from a simple picture: imagine someone so strong or skilled they could eat you like a small, easy breakfast. So the phrase now means 'to beat someone easily'.