to eat for two
5
4.7
- phrasal verb
:
comer por dos
- During her pregnancy, she often reminded herself to eat for two to support her growing baby.
- eating for two now
And when you're a pregnant woman, you are eating for two.
- And when you're a pregnant woman, you are eating for two.
Examples
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You're eating for two now.
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She's eating for two.
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Gonna be eating for two.
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You get to eat for two.
Blog text (17) -
And essentially when we're eating, we are eating for two, we're eating for ourselves and we're eating for all of those guys.
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Jack, honey, I'm only eating for two.
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You've been eating for two.
Fiction book (1995) -
I'm eating for two.
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You're eating for two now, aren't you, Mrs. Morse?
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As a pregnant woman, you need to eat for two to ensure both you and your baby get enough nutrients.
Synonyms
1
8.4
To be pregnant and expecting a baby
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from the parts: 'eat' + 'for' + 'two' signals eating on behalf of two people, which a B1 learner who knows the words can plausibly infer as eating for oneself and a baby. The construction maps to similar expressions in other languages (e.g. Spanish 'comer por dos'), so the interpretive logic is cross-linguistically common and predictable.
Etymology
Eat for two comes from the image of a pregnant person eating enough for herself and for two people, the mother and her baby. That's why 'to eat for two' means to eat more than usual.