7 letters · 16 points in Scrabble
noun biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow
verb chew (food); to bite and grind with the teeth
originFrom Middle English chewynge, chewand, from Old English *ċēowende, from Proto-Germanic *kewwandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *kewwaną (“to chew”), equivalent to chew + -ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0