as in rapacious
living by killing and eating other animals
hawks are predatory and pose a danger to rabbits and other pets
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of predatory
They apparently got caught opening up their systems to predatory resellers, which is a betrayal of fans and artists.
—
Jem Aswad, Variety, 20 Oct. 2025
After incarceration, Wright will be required to register as a predatory offender and be on conditional release for 10 years.
—Nick Ferraro, Twin Cities, 18 Oct. 2025
Birds, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, and other predatory insects are enemies of fall armyworms.
—Mary Marlowe Leverette, Southern Living, 14 Oct. 2025
Growth done right means building thriving, connected communities where families can live, work, and play without spending hours stuck in traffic or paying predatory toll prices just to move.
—Eleanor Dearman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for predatory
Jem Aswad, Variety, 20 Oct. 2025
After incarceration, Wright will be required to register as a predatory offender and be on conditional release for 10 years.
—Nick Ferraro, Twin Cities, 18 Oct. 2025
Birds, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, and other predatory insects are enemies of fall armyworms.
—Mary Marlowe Leverette, Southern Living, 14 Oct. 2025
Growth done right means building thriving, connected communities where families can live, work, and play without spending hours stuck in traffic or paying predatory toll prices just to move.
—Eleanor Dearman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for predatory
Recent Examples of Synonyms for predatory
Adjective
-
Professional sports are rapacious for-profit enterprises that produce wildly entertaining, sometimes violent, and sometimes inspiring athletic competition.—
Jay Caspian Kang,
New Yorker,
7 Nov. 2025
-
People still live beyond the confines of these fantastical constructions, but in a very dangerous world plagued by poverty, criminal gangs, rapacious rulers, and, most treacherous of all, unrepressed memories of an earlier time when exhilaration was imaginable.—
Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs,
21 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
That’s the kind of chance that last season, a more aggressive-looking Stolarz would have used his frame — and frankly, his big-game presence — to turn away with ease.—
Joshua Kloke,
New York Times,
9 Nov. 2025
-
The agency has also faced criticism for aggressive tactics used by ICE agents in executing the president’s immigration policy.—
Andy Rose 19 hr ago,
CNN Money,
9 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
These food-crops also benefit from the work performed by predaceous insects that control populations of crop-eating invertebrates.—
Bruce Beehler,
Baltimore Sun,
17 Aug. 2025
-
Biological control: Parasitic wasps, predaceous beetles and birds assist in lowering sawfly populations.—
Rita Perwich,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
5 Apr. 2025
Adjective
-
Villegas pushed for the original measure after dangerous speeding and red-light running by raptorial tow drivers ended in a nearly catastrophic crash in his ward that saw a bus that had been hit by a tow truck plow through a storefront.—
Jake Sheridan,
Chicago Tribune,
8 Apr. 2025
-
Damsel bugs are slender and tan-colored and have slightly raptorial front legs.—
Rita Perwich,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
1 July 2023
Adjective
-
The section of the Guadalupe River where the camp is located has long been prone to deadly flash flooding.—
Shambhavi Rimal,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
12 Nov. 2025
-
The deadliest assault on a school occurred in 2014 when Taliban gunmen killed 154 people, mostly children, at an army-run school in Peshawar.—
NPR,
NPR,
11 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
Just a big ferocious ball of meat, claws, and teeth.—
Fran Ruiz,
Space.com,
31 Oct. 2025
-
Though the storm did not make a direct hit on Haiti, its ferocious rains caused rivers to flood and jump their banks.—
Jacqueline Charles,
Miami Herald,
31 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Seek out wild places and remember that your body is not made to be hacked or optimized but to connect you to the earth beneath your feet.—
Tyler Austin Harper,
The Atlantic,
11 Nov. 2025
-
What’s even wilder, even more mind-blowing about this barrage of bricks?—
The Athletic NBA Staff,
New York Times,
11 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
The Edmund Fitzgerald was caught in a savage storm with hurricane-force winds around 100-mile-an-hour and waves up to 60 feet, crashing down on the freighter every four to eight seconds, says Bacon.—
NPR,
NPR,
6 Nov. 2025
-
Here, spiritual infractions are met with savage physical punishment and some of the more grotesque images in recent horror memory (which, as the genre has become ever more popular and emboldened, is seriously saying something).—
Dennis Perkins,
Entertainment Weekly,
31 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Predatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/predatory. Accessed 13 Nov. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share