predaceous
- Adjective:
- Living by preying on other animals: Describes an animal that hunts, kills, and eats other animals for food.
- Given to victimizing others for personal gain: Describes a person or entity that exploits or preys on others in a ruthless, often greedy, manner.
Describing animals: The hawk is a predaceous bird, swooping down to catch rodents.Lions are predaceous hunters at the top of the food chain.
Describing people or behavior: The predaceous business practices of the corporation harmed many small suppliers.He was a predaceous lender, charging exorbitant interest rates to desperate people.
"Predaceous instincts": The inherent, natural drive to hunt and prey. The wolf's predaceous instincts were triggered by the scent of the deer.
In an ecological context: Used to describe an organism's role in a food web. The introduction of a predaceous species can disrupt an entire ecosystem.
Predacious (adj): A less common variant spelling with identical meaning. The predacious insect quickly consumed its prey.
Predator (n): An animal that lives by killing and eating other animals; a person who ruthlessly exploits others.
- Predatory (adj): Very similar in meaning, often used interchangeably with "predaceous," especially in figurative contexts describing exploitative human behavior.
- Rapacious: Excessively greedy and predatory.
- Carnivorous: Flesh-eating (primarily used for animals, less for figurative human behavior).
- Exploitative: Taking unfair advantage of someone (primarily for human behavior).
(While "predaceous" itself is not commonly used in fixed phrasal verbs or idioms, it is related to the concept of predation.) - To prey on/upon: To hunt and kill for food; to exploit or harm someone vulnerable. The scam artist preyed upon elderly victims.Owls prey on small mammals at night.
- living by or given to victimizing others for personal gain
- predatory capitalists
- a predatory, insensate society in which innocence and decency can prove fatal- Peter S. Prescott
- a predacious kind of animal--the early geological gangster- W.E.Swinton
- hunting and killing other animals for food