vor-, vora-, -vore, -vorous, -vores, -vora, -vory

(Latin: eat, eating; consume, consuming; ingest, ingesting; devour, devouring; feeding on)

carnivory (adjective)
cepivorous
Eating onions.
comburivorous
Consuming by combustion; such as, the comburivorous power of a gas.
concarnivore
Anyone who only eats food that contains meat.
cultrivorous
1. Swallowing or pretending to swallow knives.
2. Devouring knives; swallowing, or pretending to swallow, knives; applicable to people who have swallowed, or have seemed to swallow, knives with impunity.
detritivore (s) (noun), detritivores (pl)
Feeding on fragmented particulate or eating very small pieces, or particles, of organic matter: The unusual fish, known as a detritivore, is a bottom feeder in the slow moving water of the stream.

All species of life eventually die, and detritivores are a class of organisms that feed on dead bodies.

The various kinds of detritivores can themselves be divided into a food web, based on the feeding relationships among the species. In this sense, primary detritivores feed directly on the dead biomass, while secondary detritivores feed on these direct consumers of detritus.

detritivorous (adjective), more detritivorous, most detritivorous
1. A reference to creatures that eat dead organic tissues and organisms in an ecosystem: Desert buzzards are detritivorous birds, feeding on dead animals; such as, road kill or an animal accidentally killed by a passing vehicle.
2. Descriptive of feeding on fragmented particulate (particles) of organic matter: A certain species of fish were the most detritivorous in the small river, feeding off algae and other organic matter that accumulated on the bottom of the stream.
3. Pertaining to organisms which consume particulate substances as a means of existence important in certain ecosystems; such as, in aquatic environments: The water in the lake is kept clean by the detritivorous cleaning behavior of some of the fish that exist there.
detritivory (adjective)
devorative
Something that is made to be swallowed without chewing, capable of being swallowed whole; or anything ingested in one great gulp.
devour, devours; devoured; devouring (verbs)
1. To eat greedily or voracously.
2. To destroy, consume, or waste; as, “A tornado devoured a wide area of the State”.
3. To take in eagerly.
4. To swallow up, to engulf.

Synonyms: gorge, gobble up, bolt, stuff, cram down; also, by extension: read eagerly, peruse intently, absorb wholly, engulf, and engross.

equivorous
To eat the flesh of horses.
erucivore
erucivorous
Feeding on caterpillars.

Snacking on caterpillars. "The Snack that Crawls or erucivorous snacking.

erucivory (adjective)
exudativore
Feeding on gum and other exudates (that which oozes out or diffuses) from trees.

Related "eat, eating" word units: brycho-; esculent-; esophago-; glutto-; phago-.

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 on this Vorous Quiz section so you can evaluate your knowledge about some of these "eating" words.