Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to chew the meat and spit out the bones

to chew the meat and spit out the bones

8.0
Keep the useful parts and ignore the rest
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : quedarse con lo útil
  • When it comes to feedback, remember to chew the meat and spit out the bones.

Examples

  • In any self-help book, it's wise to chew the meat and spit out the bones.

  • We should chew the meat and spit out the bones from the many opinions offered.

  • Don't chew the meat and spit out the bones!

  • You should chew the meat and spit out the bones from that lecture!

  • It's important to chew the meat and spit out the bones when considering various viewpoints on the issue.

  • In discussions, make sure to chew the meat and spit out the bones to focus on the most relevant advice.

  • When researching, always chew the meat and spit out the bones so you can utilize the best information.

How Selective

to chew the meat and spit out the bones
  • Informal
8.0

Surface Forms

chew the meat and spit out the bones infinitive
chewed the meat and spit out the bones past
chewed the meat and spit out the bones past participle
chewing the meat and spit out the bones present participle
chews the meat and spits out the bones third person singular

Morphology

chew + the + meat + and + spit + out + the + bone

The phrase literally describes keeping the 'meat' and discarding the 'bones', so a learner who knows 'chew', 'meat', 'spit out' and 'bones' can readily map this eating metaphor onto taking useful parts and rejecting useless ones. This mapping is direct and cross-linguistically common, making the overall meaning predictable from the constituents.

Etymology

The proverb chew the meat and spit out the bones comes from the simple image of eating: you chew the meat because it is good and you spit out the bones because they are useless. So the phrase means 'accept the useful parts' and 'discard what is not useful'.