/ English Dictionary |
CARNIVOROUS
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(used of plants as well as animals) feeding on animals
Example:
carnivorous plants are capable of trapping and digesting small animals especially insects
Classified under:
Similar:
flesh-eating; meat-eating; zoophagous ((of animals) carnivorous)
piscivorous (feeding on fishes)
predaceous; predacious (hunting and killing other animals for food)
Domain category:
flora; plant; plant life ((botany) a living organism lacking the power of locomotion)
Antonym:
herbivorous (feeding only on plants)
insectivorous ((of animals and plants) feeding on insects)
omnivorous (feeding on both plants and animals)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Relating to or characteristic of carnivores
Example:
the lion and other carnivorous animals
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
carnivore (a terrestrial or aquatic flesh-eating mammal)
Context examples:
A much more important problem is the question as to the existence of the carnivorous monster which has left its traces in this glade.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
She had snarled as she sprang away, baring her white fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness vanishing, being replaced by a carnivorous malignity that made him shudder.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
I venture to trust that we may have some future opportunity for the closer study of the carnivorous dinosaurs.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He was a carnivorous animal.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Now, it is very clear to me that in so long a period one would have expected that the carnivorous creatures, multiplying unchecked, would have exhausted their food supply and have been compelled to either modify their flesh-eating habits or die of hunger.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"Exactly. Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the case. Among them are to be found all the most terrible types of animal life that have ever cursed the earth or blessed a museum."
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He then thrilled the assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had encountered.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)