Eating crow is a U.S. colloquial idiom, meaning humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proved wrong after taking a strong position. Eating crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proved wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow. The exact origin of the idiom is unknown, but it probably began with an American story published around 1850 about a slow-witted New York farmer. Eating crow is of a family of idioms having to do with eating and being proved incorrect, such as to "eat dirt" and to "eat your hat" (or shoe), all probably originating from "to eat one's words", which first appears in print in 1571 in one of John Calvin's tracts, on Psalm 62: “God eateth not his words when he hath once spoken”.
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Famous quotes containing the words eating and/or crow:
“As I sat at the cafe, I said to myself,
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,
But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.”
—Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
“I saw a crow by Red Rock
standing on one leg
It was the black of your hair
The years are heavy”
—N. Scott Momaday (b. 1934)