Carnivorous

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /kɑːˈnɪv.ə.ɹəs/

Definitions

1. A creature or plant that obtains nourishment by consuming animal tissue or capturing small prey organisms
2. Describing an organism that survives by eating flesh or animal matter
3. Characterizing living beings that obtain food through hunting or consuming other animals

Etymology: "Carnivorous" is built from two Latin parts: "carn-", from "caro" meaning flesh, and "-vorus", from "vorare" meaning to devour or swallow whole. Put together, the Latin "carnivorus" meant "flesh-eating," a plain descriptive label with no hidden metaphor behind it. English took the word directly from that Latin form, so it arrived as a scientific-sounding description rather than a folk term. The "-vorous" ending is the same element found in "herbivorous" and "omnivorous," which is why these words form a tidy family: each names what an animal eats, and the first part of the compound names the food.

Synonyms: meat-eating, flesh-eating, predatory, voracious, rapacious

Antonyms: herbivorous, omnivorous, vegetarian, plant-eating, frugivorous