phago-, phag-, -phage, -phagi, -phagic, -phagically, -phagia, -phagism, -phagist, -phagic, -phagous, -phagy

(Greek: eat, eating; to consume, to ingest; relationship to eating or consumption by ingestion or engulfing)

argilliophagist (s) (noun), argilliophagists (pl)
Someone who eats white clay: Argilliophagists are those people, mostly in the southern sections of the U.S. and in urban Africa, who have a habit of eating soil or clay.

White clay is normally consumed by parrots, macaws, monkeys, and deer.

argillophagy (s) (noun) (no pl)
The consumption of white clay: The case of argillophagy arises mostly among African American women whose parents, relative, or friends had eaten clay. Argillophagy occurred during childhood or later when the women were pregnant.

Argillophagy

Clay, well-known as a skin treatment, may also be helpful when a person has had too much to drink. Ancient Greeks and Romans used it as a detoxifying substance, and many French drinkers swear by a glass of the creamy, grey argile verte the morning after.

Should anyone have long-term alcohol intake which produces more serious gastric problems, clay's anti-inflammatory and wound-healing properties are also said to help stomach ulcers.

—Based on information from
"Myth or Medicine?" as seen in "élan",
a section in The European; December, 1993; page 7.
autobacteriophage
An autogenous bacteriophage, a phage obtained from the patient under treatment.
autocoprophage, autocoprophagous, autocoprophagy
1. A reference to an organism that consumes its own feces.
2. The action of an organism that eats its own excretion.
autologophagist, autologophagy
A reference to those who must eat their own words.
autophage, autophagous, autophagy
1. Self-devouring; the biting or eating of one’s own flesh.
2. The nutrition of the body by the consumption of its own tissues; the feeding upon oneself, sustenance of life during the process of starvation by absorption of the tissues of the body.
3. A reference to precocious offspring who are capable of locating and securing their own food.
autophagi
Birds that are able to run around and obtain their own food as soon as they are hatched.
autophagia
1. The biting or eating of one's own flesh.
2. The intracellular digestion of endogenous material of the cell within a lysosome.
3. The recycling of the body of its own tissue during starvation.
autophagocytosis
The segregation and degradation of damaged or unwanted cytoplasmic constituents by autophagic vacuoles (cytolysosomes) composed of lysosomes containing cellular components in the process of digestion; it plays an important role in metamorphosis of amphibians, in the removal of bone by osteoclasts, and in the degradation of normal cell components in nutritional deficiency states.
bacteriophage, bacteriophagia
1. A virus infesting and usually lysing [destroying the bounding membrane] bacteria; sometimes abbreviated as phage.
2 An organism that feeds on bacteria.
bacteriophagology
The study of bacteriophages.
bacteriophagous, bacteriophagy
Eating bacteria.
batrachophagous
The eating or consumption of frogs.
batrachophagy
Eating frogs.
bibliophage (noun), bibliophages (pl)
1. Someone who devours books or who reads with a great deal of interest; a "bookworm": There are those who are such eager and fervent readers that they are known as bibliophages who read beyond what is considered to be normal for such an activity.

Karl was a genuine bibliophage who would read for hours instead of watching TV or doing any other non-essential activities.

2. A parasite, often referred to as a bookworm, which destroys books by eating into the pages: Some books have been around for so many years that they show where bibliophages, or worms, have actually eaten holes in them.
3. Etymology: literally, a bookeater; from Greek biblion, "book" + Greek, phagia, from phagein, "to eat".
An ardent reader of books.
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Related "eat, eating" word units: brycho-; esculent-; esophago-; glutto-; vor-.

Cross references of word families that are related directly, or indirectly, to: "food, nutrition, nourishment": alimento-; broma-; carno-; cibo-; esculent-; sitio-; tropho-; Eating Crawling Snacks; Eating: Carnivorous-Plant "Pets"; Eating: Folivory or Leaf Eaters; Eating: Omnivorous.


Quiz If you would like to take self-scoring quizzes over some of the words in this thematic unit, then click Phago Quizzes, so you can evaluate your knowledge about some of these "eat, eating" words.