omnivoren.
/ˈɒmnᵻvɔː/, U.S. /ˈɑmnəˌvɔr/ 1. An omnivorous animal.
ΚΠ
1871 Amer. Naturalist 5 604 The preference for vegetable or for animal food determined by the choice of individual animals among the omnivores..must have determined their course of life.
a1933 J. A. Thomson Biol. for Everyman (1934) I. i. 4 The different kinds of diet are not less varied: there are carnivorous animals, herbivores, insectivores, and omnivores.
1964 Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 2 259 [Among fish] herbivores and omnivores tend to concentrate the same radionuclides which are present in plankton.
2001 Nat. New Eng. May 21/1 Foxes, being omnivores and fully active during winter, were often spotted cruising on packed trails.
2. A person who eats food of all kinds (i.e. one who is not a vegetarian) (colloquial). Also figurative: a person who absorbs all kinds of information.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > consumption of food or drink > eating > eating specific substances or food > [noun] > eating all sorts of food > eater of all sorts of food
polyphagist1819
pantophagist1822
omnivore1887
1887 Science 18 Mar. 264/1 We doubt the value to a man of a mass of indefinite ill-digested text-book information. Occasionally an omnivore can take in everything, and digest and so metabolize it as to organize it into healthy mental tissue.
1890 Evening Post 8 Feb. 4/5 Some of the interrogated were vegetarians, and some omnivores.
1980 Early Music Gaz. Jan. 3/3 Only a hydra-headed omnivore could have absorbed all offered at this Conference.
1993 Cottage Life (Toronto) June 34/2 The omnivores will expect something else on their plates.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2004; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1871