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chew the scenery

verb

Etymology

Its earliest reference is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang as being used by Mary Hallock Foote in Coeur D'Alene in 1894.http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001024

Definitions

  1. To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing

    To display excessive emotion or to act in an exaggerated manner while performing; to be melodramatic; to be flamboyant.

    • Near-synonym: camp it up
    • The way the six stars chew the scenery is nothing compared to their abuse of one another.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for chew the scenery. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA