Eating crow
English-language idiom for humiliatingly admitting being proven wrong
Eating crow is a colloquial idiom, used in some English-speaking countries, that means humiliation by admitting having been proven wrong after taking a strong position. The crow is a carrion-eater that is presumably repulsive to eat in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow. The exact origin of the idiom is unknown, but it probably began with an American humor story published around 1850 about a smart-aleck New York farmer who is outwitted.
Eating crow is of a family of idioms having to do with eating and being proven incorrect, such as to "eat dirt", to "eat one's hat" (or shoe), or to put one's foot in their mouth; 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".
An old Australian demonym for South Australian people is Croweater, though it does not carry the same idiomatic meaning as eating crow.
Origin theories
Literally eating a crow is traditionally seen as being distasteful; the crow, if understood to be a type of raven, is one of the birds listed in Leviticus chapter 11 as being unfit for eating. Scavenging carrion eaters have a long association with the battlefield; "They left the corpses behind for the raven, never was there greater slaughter in this island," says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Along with buzzards, rats, and other carrion-eating scavenging animals, there is a tradition in Western culture going back to at least the Middle Ages of seeing them as distasteful (even illegal at times) to eat, and thus naturally humiliating if forced to consume against one's will.
In the modern figurative sense of being proven wrong, eating crow probably first appeared in print in 1850, as an American humor piece about a rube farmer near Lake Mahopack, New York. The OED V2 says the story was first published as "Eating Crow" in San Francisco's Daily Evening Picayune (3 December 1851), but two other early versions exist, one in The Knickerbocker (date unknown), and one in the Saturday Evening Post (2 November 1850) called "Can You Eat Crow?" All tell a similar story: a slow-witted New York farmer is outfoxed by his (presumed urban) boarders; after they complain about the poor food being served, the farmer discounts the complaint by claiming he "kin eat anything", and the boarders wonder if he can eat a crow.
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