Vorare

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To consume or swallow something eagerly and completely; to devour with great appetite or intensity; to engulf or take in overwhelmingly
2. To eat greedily or ravenously, often with an insatiable desire; to absorb or incorporate rapidly and thoroughly; to seize or consume entirely
3. To ingest with voracity and thoroughness; to completely consume or gulp down; to rapidly embrace or take up something with intense desire

Etymology: "Vorare" is a Latin verb meaning "to devour" or "to swallow whole," and it is the ancestor of English "voracious." Its root is an ancient Indo-European stem associated with swallowing, and the Latin word was used for eating and gulping, sometimes of animals and sometimes of people with insatiable appetite. Latin speakers built "vorax" ("greedy, gluttonous") from the same stem, and from that adjective English took "voracious" in the early 1600s, with "voracity" following soon after. The English verb "vorate" is a much later and rarer creation, formed directly from the Latin stem rather than inherited through French. It appears in dictionaries as a learned, somewhat literary word, and its meaning has tracked the adjective closely: first the physical act of gulping down food, then the figurative sense of consuming information, ideas, or experiences with the same ravenous appetite.