eat one's words

Be forced to retract something one has said, as in The incumbent won easily, so I had to eat my words. This expression was already proverbial in John Ray's English Proverbs (1670). [Second half of 1500s]

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Damodar	-	Indian, Hindi
Silvester	sil-VES-tər (English)	Dutch, English, Slovene, Slovak, German, Late Roman
Oluwafunmilayo	-	Western African, Yoruba
Rogier	ro-KHEER	Dutch
Urbanus	-	Late Roman, Biblical Latin
Nnamdi	-	Western African, Igbo