Phagy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Refers to the act or practice of eating or consuming a particular kind of food or substance, as used in combined words
2. A combining form meaning the habit or process of ingesting or devouring something, as found in medical and biological terms
3. Denotes the action of consuming or swallowing material, often used as the closing element of scientific compound words

Etymology: "-phagy" is a combining form meaning "eating," and it entered English through the Greek verb "phagein," "to eat." The Greek root is the source of the suffix seen in words like "anthropophagy" (eating of humans) and "sarcophagy" (eating of flesh), and it is closely related to "esophagus," the eating-tube, from Greek "oisophagos." In Greek, "phagein" was an ordinary verb for eating, and it survives in the Indo-European family as the ancestor of many words for consumption. English scientists and writers did not inherit "-phagy" as a everyday word, though. They built it from the Greek root in the 18th and 19th centuries, when new technical vocabulary was being coined from classical elements, so ancient Greeks never used "-phagy" as a standalone term. The suffix became productive in modern usage, with words like "geophagy" (eating earth or soil) and "entomophagy" (eating insects) recorded in English. The ending now marks any practice of eating a particular kind of food, usually in a scientific or anthropological context.