verb phrase🎓 English idiom
bite off more than you can chew
to take on more than you can handle
What it means
To take on a task or commitment that is too large or difficult to manage. It warns against overestimating your capacity and ending up overwhelmed.
Words like “bite off more than you can chew” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.
Examples
- By volunteering for three committees at once, she bit off more than she could chew.
- I think I bit off more than I could chew when I agreed to renovate the whole house.
- Don't bite off more than you can chew during your first month at the new job.
- He bit off more than he could chew and missed two deadlines that week.
Where it comes from
A 19th-century American expression drawn literally from taking too big a mouthful of food, possibly linked to chewing tobacco, where greedy bites caused trouble.
Related idioms
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