eszés

Eszés is a Hungarian noun that denotes the act or process of eating. In modern standard Hungarian, the most common term for this concept is evés. Eszés is largely limited to dialectal, historical, or stylistic contexts and is not routinely used in everyday speech.

The word is formed from a verb related to eating with the nominal suffix -és, a productive pattern in Hungarian for creating abstract nouns that denote actions. This places eszés in the same general family as other action nouns, though it is not as widespread as its more standard counterpart evés.

In contemporary usage, eszés is typically encountered in older literary texts, regional speech, or deliberate anachronisms intended to evoke a rustic or historical atmosphere. Many Hungarian dictionaries classify eszés as archaic or dialectal and advise using evés in ordinary prose. Related terms include étkezés, which refers to meals or the act of dining in a somewhat broader sense, and étvágy/cháské, which relate to hunger and appetite. Slang for eating, such as kajálás, is widely used in informal speech but carries a more casual connotation.

See also: evés, étkezés, étvágy, kajálás.