Eating crow

Eating crow is a colloquial idiom,[1] used in some English-speaking countries, that means humiliation by admitting having been proven wrong after taking a strong position.

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,[5] and thus naturally humiliating if forced to consume against one's will.

[2] 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.

"[3] Although the humor might produce only a weak smile today, it was probably a knee slapper by 19th-century standards, guaranteeing the story would be often retold in print and word of mouth, thus explaining, in part, the idiom's origin.

Pies made of this were said to be served to those of lesser class who did not eat at the king's/lord's/governor's table, possibly following speculation in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable but there is little evidence for this.

[9] The earliest known usage dates to 1881 in the book To Mount Browne and Back by J. C. F. Johnson who writes: "I was met with the startling information that all Adelaide men were croweaters… because it was asserted that the early settlers… when short of mutton, made a meal of the unwary crow".

How they became known as crow eaters instead is unknown but notably this term appears after the American usage in 1850 but does not carry the same idiomatic or pejorative meaning of being proven wrong.

[10] After incumbent Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 United States presidential election despite many media predictions of a Dewey victory, The Washington Post sent a telegram to the victor: You Are Hereby Invited To A "Crow Banquet" To Which This Newspaper Proposes To Invite Newspaper Editorial Writers, Political Reporters And Editors, Including Our Own, Along With Pollsters, Radio Commentators And Columnists ... Main Course Will Consist of Breast of Tough Old Crow En Glace.