These words refer to the partaking of food. Eat is the most general, applying equally well to man or animal; the woman eating a hot dog; horses eating chaff. Only context can give further details: slowly eating his breakfast of bacon and eggs; eating his dessert almost in one gulp.

Dine and sup are relatively formal; both specifically refer to eating done by people. Dine can point to the day’s main meal: She ate a light lunch so that she would be able to dine later without a guilty conscience. Or the word can refer to any formal or special meal: She asked her husband’s employer to dine with them next week. Sup now sounds archaic and, worse, pretentious, though once it could refer to an evening or late evening meal: They had a nightcap and supped on left-overs once the guests were gone.

Unlike the preceding pair, consume can refer to either man or animal, but its point in either case is the thoroughness of the eating , suggesting the utter and avid taking in of a food: a pack of lions able to consume the whole carass of an impala in a single night; The hungry boy consumed every last scrap on his plate. Thus, the word can apply to any process that involves total destruction and in which one thing can be seen as feeding off another: The raging fever that was consuming her body. Gorge compares to consume , but stresses eating or even overeating to the point of satiety or possibly discomfort, suggesting the gluttonous and indiscriminate stuffing down of food: the sleepy hounds lying about gorged with food; the fat man who gorged himself constantly with mountainous desserts.

Gobble emphasizes rapid eating rather than the thoroughness indicated by consume or the excessiveness possible for gorge : chickens who gobbled down the scattered breadcrumbs in a twinkling; He warned the girl that she’d get sick if she gobbled her food that way. Wolf also emphasizes quickness, but it indicates a ravenous ferocity or desperation, as well. Since its obvious metaphor pertaining to one animal might make the word tautological in that instance and inappropriate in others, the main point of the word is to describe human eating in terms of a wolf’s swift and rapacious feeding: wolfing down one canape after another as though he were starving; a film that depicted Henry VIII wolfing down an incredible array of viands.

Devour can apply equally well to animals or men, though it is more general in its implications than the preceding, suggesting either the total consumption of something or the rapidity with which it is eaten : kittens that devoured the whole plate of catfood before the dozing mother cat could stir; hungry soldiers who devoured the tasteless braised steak ladled out to them by the mess orderly. Like consume , this word can have metaphorical uses, referring in this case to eager or enthusiastic taking in or, possibly, to the predatory destruction of something.

• She devoured her French lessons so that she would be proficient by the time of her first trip abroad; All their assets were devoured by an unscrupulous loan shark.