flesh-eating

adjective

flesh-eat·​ing ˈflesh-ˌē-tiŋ 

: feeding on or destroying flesh or soft tissue

A Kentucky man was diagnosed with a flesh-eating infection after he went camping along the Green River.

—Dayton (Ohio) Daily News

… infestation by blowflies whose eggs hatch into flesh-eating maggots.

—Kerry Capell

But according to Eugenie Clark, a University of Maryland zoologist, "the white shark, the largest flesh-eating fish, is anything but a mindless, constant eating machine."

—Discover

Natural history buffs will find … a 145-million-year-old foot from the Allosaur, one of the largest flesh-eating dinosaurs …

—Carolyn Hughes Crowley

see also flesh-eating bacterium, flesh-eating disease

Examples of flesh-eating in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The New World screwworm, which was found in the United States in June for the first time in decades, often chooses livestock like cows to host its flesh-eating larvae. — Jen Christensen, CNN Money, 5 July 2026

But health experts are issuing a warning amid the rise in cases of the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus. — Vanessa Etienne, PEOPLE, 2 July 2026

Researchers this spring discovered flesh-eating bacteria in water in several coastal locations across New York's Long Island, and town officials in the Hamptons vacation destination posted an alert about the findings. — Stephanie Armour, CBS News, 1 July 2026

In Texas, ranchers are bracing for an onslaught of screwworms, the flesh-eating maggots of blowflies. — Burkhard Bilger, New Yorker, 29 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1588, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for flesh-eating

• accreting
• competing
• completing
• concreting
• defeating
• deleting
• depleting
• entreating
• preheating
• reheating
• repeating
• retreating