voracious

adjective

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vo·ra·cious | \ vȯ-ˈrā-shəs

, və- \

Definition of voracious

1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous

2 : excessively eager : insatiable a voracious reader

Other Words from voracious Synonyms Choose the Right Synonym Veracious or voracious? Did You Know? More Example Sentences Learn More about voracious

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Choose the Right Synonym for voracious

voracious, gluttonous, ravenous, rapacious mean excessively greedy. voracious applies especially to habitual gorging with food or drink. teenagers are often voracious eaters gluttonous applies to one who delights in eating or acquiring things especially beyond the point of necessity or satiety. an admiral who was gluttonous for glory ravenous implies excessive hunger and suggests violent or grasping methods of dealing with food or with whatever satisfies an appetite. a nation with a ravenous lust for territorial expansion rapacious often suggests excessive and utterly selfish acquisitiveness or avarice. rapacious developers indifferent to environmental concerns

Veracious or voracious?

Take care to distinguish between the near-homophones veracious and voracious, whose similarities in sound mask utterly different meanings. Veracious (“honest, truthful”), like its cousins veritable, verify, and very, concerns that which is true. Voracious (”having a greedy or insatiable appetite”), on the other hand, describes the urge to consume large quantities of something, often food, books, or ideas. One way to remember the difference is that the one with the E as its second letter means "truE," and the one with the O as its second letter means "ravenOus." Not coincidentally, these adjectives have near-homophonous noun derivatives: veracity ("truthfulness") and voracity ("the quality or state of being voracious").

Did You Know?

Voracious is one of several English words that derive from the Latin verb vorare, which means "to eat greedily" or "to devour." "Vorare" is also an ancestor of "devour" and of the "-ivorous" words, which describe the diets of various animals. These include "carnivorous" ("meat-eating"), "herbivorous" ("plant-eating"), "omnivorous" ("feeding on both animals and plants"), "frugivorous" ("fruit-eating"), "graminivorous" ("feeding on grass"), and "piscivorous" ("fish-eating").

Examples of voracious in a Sentence

He has a voracious appetite. it seemed like the voracious kitten was eating her weight in food every day

Recent Examples on the Web Hundreds of pages of Myanmar government budgets for the last two fiscal years viewed by The New York Times show a voracious appetite for the latest in military-grade surveillance technology. — New York Times, "Myanmar’s Military Deploys Digital Arsenal of Repression in Crackdown," 1 Mar. 2021 Lagerfeld, of course, shared Jones’s voracious appetite for collecting books. — Harper's BAZAAR, "Kim Jones Is Fendi's New Renaissance Man," 23 Feb. 2021 The voracious appetite of these apex predators disrupts the food chain in environmentally fragile areas like the Everglades. — Tribune News Service, oregonlive, "Wait, snake and eggs for breakfast? Florida might encourage to fight python invasion," 21 Dec. 2020 National Farmers Union President Rob Larew, who spent years working for Peterson, described him as a voracious reader who traveled all over the country to understand the challenges facing farmers in different regions. — Briana Bierschbach, Star Tribune, "A 'giant' in DFL politics, Collin Peterson reflects on three decades in Congress," 6 Feb. 2021 Netflix rode the voracious hunger for TV content during a year of pandemic viewership to a dominant showing at the Golden Globe nominations. — Mark Kennedy, Star Tribune, "Netflix once again dominates Golden Globe TV nominations," 3 Feb. 2021 One worker feeds a voracious oven from piles of cane fiber. — New York Times, "Colombians Ask: Who Would Dare Patent Panela?," 26 Jan. 2021 Snack Snatcher -- guard your pockets: Snack Snatcher is voracious and sticky-fingered. — Mary Jane Brewer, cleveland, "Keep an eye out for Yule troublemakers on Medina County hike," 31 Dec. 2020 King came by his voracious but no-frills manner honestly. — The Associated Press, NOLA.com, "Larry King, broadcasting giant for half-century, dies at 87," 23 Jan. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'voracious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.