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''voracious'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250716195010-00-⌔

voracious - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

voracious (comparative more voracious, superlative most voracious)

  • (of a person or their appetite) Wanting or devouring great quantities of food.
    • ✤ He is voracious by suppertime.
    • ✤ His appetite is voracious by suppertime.
    • ✤ I never had so much as […] one wish to God to direct me whither I should go, or to keep me from the danger which apparently surrounded me, as well from voracious creatures as cruel savages.1
    • ✤ The old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious assault on the breakfast.2
    • ✤ Retreating before stronger breeds, hungry and voracious, the Eskimo has drifted to the inhospitable polar regions, the Pygmy to the fever-rotten jungles of Africa.3
  • Having a great appetite for anything; eager.
    • ✤ a voracious reader
    • ✤ If he carried chiefly his appetite, a zeal for tiled bathrooms, a conviction that the Pullman car is the acme of human comfort, and a belief that it is proper to tip waiters, taxicab drivers, and barbers, but under no circumstances station agents and ushers, then his Odyssey will be replete with good meals and bad meals, bathing adventures, compartment-train escapades, and voracious demands for money.4
    • ✤ Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find.5
    • ✤ Phoenix: Moe seems to be a voracious reader. Look at all the hard books he has here.6

Etymology

From Latin vorāx + English -acious. First attested in the 17th century.7

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /vɔːˈɹeɪ.ʃəs/, /vəˈɹeɪ.ʃəs/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australian): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃəs
  • Homophone: veracious

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 45, in Oliver Twist; […], volume, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1917, Jack London, “The Human Drift”, in The Human Drift, New York: Macmillan, page 3: ↩

  4. 1922, Walter Lippmann, chapter 7, in Public Opinion: ↩

  5. 2005 August 29, Nathan Thornburgh, “The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies”, in Time: ↩

  6. 2007 March 16, Capcom Production Studio 4, quoting Phoenix, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All, Europe: Capcom, →OCLC, Nintendo DS, scene: Part 3: Investigation, Moe’s Room, level/area: Turnabout Big Top: ↩

  7. “voracious, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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Secondary

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