fletcherize

present singular third person fletcherizes · participle present fletcherizing · participle past fletcherized · past fletcherized · alternative fletcherise · alternative Fletcherize · alternative Fletcherise

1. intransitivetransitiveTo thoroughly chew (dozens or hundreds of times) before swallowing.

   If you have learned to chew your food, continue to fletcherize, be enthusiastic about it.

   1909 September 24, J. H. Kellogg, “Tobacco Deadly Poison in Any and All Doses”, in The Battle Creek Idea, volume II, number 42, Battle Creek, Michigan, page 2

   3 more examples

   William, how many times must I tell you to fletcherize your bones before you swallow them? You might as well be eating bread and butter, or roast beef, if you don't fletcherize your bones properly. Chew each bite of bone four hundred times, young man, or I'll get a jaw-meter and make you wear it!

   1911 May, Ellis Parker Butler, “The Bone-Crackers: A Dietetic Comedy in One Act”, in Munsey's Magazine, volume XLV, number II, page 204

   I am assured that if a man chews it in the manner invented by M. Fletcher of the United States, he can live for an unlimited period on four ounces a day .... We have therefore food for one man for forty days, food for two for twenty days. ... at the end of that twenty days, one of us will Fletcherise the other!

   1912, Edgar Jepson, The Man with the Black Feather, Small, Maynard, free translation (not in original) of La double vie de Théophraste Longuet by Gaston Leroux, published 1903, page 275

   We all knew that for years he had suffered from the evil effects of a dangerous dietary system, called (after the name of its egregious inventor) “Fletcherizing”.

   1934, Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance, Appleton-Century Company, page 365

2. broadlyfigurativelyTo consume, to devour, to bite, to chew over.

   Indeed he may fletcherize a truth mentally, all day long, and not get action. Thus he will not grow and develop.

   1913, William Thomas Goffe, Problems in Retail Selling, Analyzed, page 71

   2 more examples

   Annette Fletcherized large numbers of romantic novels which she obtained at a free public library branch (donated by one of the biggest caliphs in the business).

   1910, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “(please specify the story)”, in Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC

   The terrier had got the poodle by the left hind-leg and was restating his war-aims. The raffish mongrel was apparently endeavouring to fletcherize a complete stranger of the Sealyham family.

   1925, P.G. Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally

present singular third person Fletcherizes · participle present Fletcherizing · participle past Fletcherized · past Fletcherized

1. alternativeAlternative form of fletcherize.