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

Visitors will enter the Price family’s secluded vacation home in the woods, succumb to ferocious flesh-eating Deadites and pass through other twisted scenes from the latest movie in the Evil Dead Burn haunted house. — Brady MacDonald, Oc Register, 21 July 2026

Both the brain-eating amoeba and flesh-eating bacteria flourish in warm water conditions. — Janet Loehrke, USA Today, 17 July 2026

On top of that, foreign and domestic outbreaks of New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, are further straining the already tight cattle supply and driving up expenses due to costly disease monitoring and prevention measures. — Claire Malon, Chicago Tribune, 17 July 2026

At their Czech–Indian wedding, Jacob and Mia’s tradition-hungry guests unexpectedly begin transforming into flesh-eating monsters. — John Hopewell, Variety, 14 July 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