When you chew food, you use your teeth to break it up in your mouth so that it becomes easier to swallow.

If you chew gum or tobacco, you keep biting it and moving it around your mouth to taste the flavour of it. You do not swallow it.

If you chew your lips or your fingernails, you keep biting them because you are nervous.

If a person or animal chews an object, they bite it with their teeth.

A chew is a sweet that you have to chew very hard before it becomes soft.

If you say that someone has bitten off more than they can chew, you mean that they are trying to do something which is too difficult for them.

If people chew the fat, they talk in a relaxed, informal way.