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Also, eat dirt or humble pie. Be forced to admit a humiliating mistake, as in When the reporter got the facts all wrong, his editor made him eat crow. The first term's origin has been lost, although a story relates that it involved a War of 1812 encounter in which a British officer made an American soldier eat part of a crow he had shot in British territory. Whether or not it is true, the fact remains that crow meat tastes terrible. The two variants originated in Britain. Dirt obviously tastes bad. And humble pie alludes to a pie made from umbles, a deer's undesirable innards (heart, liver, entrails). [Early 1800s] Also see EAT ONE'S WORDS.
American Heritage Idioms
2
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Phrase(s): eat crow
1. Fig. to display total humility, especially when shown to be wrong. • Well, it looks like I was wrong, and I’m going to have to eat crow. • I’ll be eating crow if I’m not shown to be right. 2. Fig. to be shamed; to admit that one was wrong. • When it became clear that they had arrested the wrong person, the police had to eat crow. • Mary talked to Joe as if he was an uneducated idiot, till she found out he was a college professor. That made her eat crow.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs