carnivorous
/kɑːˈnɪv(ə)rəs
/adjective
1(Of an animal) feeding on other animals.Most of these turtles are carnivorous, feeding on mollusks, crustaceans, aquatic insects, fish, and amphibians....
- If a pack of carnivorous mammals were to chase a lone prey animal into the tar pits, both predators and prey would become trapped.
- Much fossil evidence has been uncovered supporting the idea that birds evolved from a group of bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods.
Synonyms
meat-eating, flesh-eating, predatory, of prey, hunting, raptorial
rare creophagous, zoophagous
1.1(Of a plant) able to trap and digest small animals, especially insects.There's a botanical garden with carnivorous plants on display....
- The Venus fly trap is an endemic carnivorous plant growing on sandy soils in the central south-eastern coastal plain of North America.
- One of the most common pairings for a terrarium are carnivorous plants and orchids.
Derivatives
carnivorously
- Two adobo-rubbed lamb chops arrive grilled exactly as ordered, carnivorously comely in their spicy West African peanut sauce and marvelously garnished with a savory minced lamb pie.
- When I moved to Montreal a couple of years ago, I began to eat more carnivorously and now, I occasionally enjoy a smoked meat sandwich or BBQ.
- Before you carnivorously chow down, spend some time to find out about that chunk of flesh on your plate.
carnivorousness
- Au Pied de Cochon is an unabashed celebration of carnivorousness.
- What brings them here is, in the main, dishes of extreme carnivorousness: tripe soup, goat meat (with French fries or Spanish rice and beans, $5), oxtail, and meat balls (ditto).
- I embraced my newfound carnivorousness wholeheartedly and sampled such things as goat and ostrich.
carnivory
- Cat teeth are highly specialized for carnivory.
- This fits in with the general trend away from carnivory and toward herbivory that characterises mammalian evolution in many lineages.
- Food habits range from strict carnivory to strict herbivory.
Origin
Late 16th century: from Latin carnivorus, from caro, carn- 'flesh' + -vorus (see -vorous).