Word of the Day

: December 19, 2007

voracious

adjective vaw-RAY-shus

What It Means

1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous

2 : excessively eager : insatiable

voracious in Context

Cemal is a voracious reader who whips through three or four books each week.

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").

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.