吃

In a sentence

• 我今天早上吃了一个苹果。

  This morning, I ate an apple.

  Here, '吃' means 'to eat' and is used as the main verb indicating the action of consuming food.

• 这部电影真是太吃时间了。

  This movie really takes up a lot of time.

  In this sentence, '吃' metaphorically means 'to consume' with a non-food object, indicating the consumption of time.

• 我们遇到了一个棘手的问题，真是吃不消。

  We encountered a tricky problem; it is really exhausting.

  Here, '吃' is part of the phrase '吃不消', which means 'unable to endure' or 'cannot handle', transferring the concept of consuming into the realm of enduring or tolerating.