Creophagous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Referring to organisms that predominantly feed on animal flesh
2. Characterizing a diet that consists chiefly of meat from other animals
3. Describing animals that consume mostly meat as their primary source of nutrition

Etymology: "Creophagous" is built from two Greek elements: "kreas", meaning flesh or meat, and "phagos", meaning eating, which appears in English words such as "phagocyte" and "anthropophagous". Put together, the word describes an animal whose diet is mostly meat. The "-ous" ending simply turns the noun-like combining form into an adjective, as in "carnivorous" or "omnivorous". The "creo-" element comes from Greek "kreas", the same root that gives the "cree-" or "creo-" forms in other scientific coinages, and it is the form used in technical terms rather than everyday English. The "-phagous" half follows the same pattern, a classical combining form that English scientists drew on when they needed precise words for diet and feeding. Because the word is an adjective and was formed deliberately from these parts rather than inherited, it reads as a technical term from a learned tradition of naming animals by their food.