Word of the Day

: February 11, 2021

voracious

adjective vaw-RAY-shus

What It Means

1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous

2 : excessively eager : insatiable

voracious in Context

"The Green Tiger Beetle (Cicindela campestris) is a voracious creature both in the larval stage and when it becomes a perfect insect. It inhabits bare banks and sandy heaths, preying indiscriminately on other insects, often mounting upon the wing with the rapidity of a blue-bottle fly." — C. S. Cooper and W. Percival Westell, Trees & Shrubs of the British Isles, 1909

"A voracious reader, Walker planned on making it through the novel 'The Alchemist' by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho for the second time. That pursuit got sidetracked when coach Gregg Popovich gave him a stack of books to read, including the latest memoir of former President Barack Obama." — Jeff McDonald, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, 23 Dec. 2020

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").