clean your plate
Leave nothing behind
Clean your plate means to eat all the food served to you, leaving nothing behind.
The phrase carries overtones of parental instruction and mealtime discipline: Clean your plate before you ask for dessert.
It sometimes appears in broader contexts about finishing what you've started or not wasting resources.
- finishBring to completion
- emptyHolding nothing inside
- scrapeRub harshly against
- clear the tableRemove dishes after eating
- leftoversUneaten food kept afterward
food waste · hungry · full · waste · mother · guilt · seconds · fork · dinner table · manners · good manners · childhood · dinner · table · appetite · portions · starving · picky eater
- eating phrasesdig in, chow down, bon appetit, eat up, gobble up
- gluttonyglutton, gluttonous, gorge, gorger, gorging
- sayingssayings, saying, proverb, proverbs, adage
- dining phrasesbon appetit, dig in, come and get it, pass the salt, cheers
- momismsI told you so, no means no, back in my day, last warning
- appetitehungry, hunger, starving, famished, ravenous
eating attitude/approach
clean your plateeat like a bird
Consume minimal amounts
nibble · undereat · graze · send it back
clean, cleaner, cleanest, cleanly, cleanliness, cleanser, cleanse, cleaned, cleaning