Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Living by preying on other organisms: Describes animals that hunt, kill, and eat other animals for food.
   • Seeking to exploit or victimize others for personal gain: Describes people, organizations, or behaviors that unfairly use, deceive, or harm others for selfish advantage, often in financial or social contexts.
   • Characterized by plundering or pillaging: Relating to violent theft, especially in the context of war or banditry.

Examples of Usage

• Describing animals:
  • The hawk is a predatory bird, swooping down to catch mice.
  • Lions are predatory animals at the top of the food chain.
• Describing exploitative behavior:
  • The company was accused of predatory lending practices that trapped people in debt.
  • He warned against the predatory tactics of some door-to-door salesmen.
• Describing plundering:
  • The predatory raids by the invaders left the villages in ruins.

Advanced Usage

• "Predatory pricing": An economic strategy where a company sets prices extremely low to drive competitors out of the market.
  • The large corporation was investigated for predatory pricing.
• "Predatory instinct": The natural impulse to hunt or pursue.
  • The cat watched the bird with predatory instinct.

Variants and Related Words

• Predator (n): An animal that lives by killing and eating other animals; a person or group that ruthlessly exploits others.
  • The wolf is a natural predator.
  • He was a predator in the business world.
• Predation (n): The act of preying on other organisms; the act of plundering or victimizing.
  • The study focused on the effects of bird predation on insect populations.

Synonyms

• Rapacious: Excessively greedy and predatory.
• Predacious: Another term for predatory, especially regarding animals.
• Marauding: Going about in search of things to steal or people to attack.
• Vulturine: Resembling a vulture, especially in being greedy or predatory.

Related Phrases

• "Predatory behavior": Actions intended to exploit, harm, or dominate a weaker party.
  • The new law aims to curb predatory behavior in the housing market.
• "Turn predatory": To become aggressively exploitative.
  • The friendly takeover attempt suddenly turned predatory.

Related Idioms

• "A wolf in sheep's clothing": Someone who hides a malicious or predatory nature behind a harmless appearance. (This idiom conveys a similar concept of deceptive harm.)
  • Be careful; that charming investor might be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Adjective

1. 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
2. living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
   • a predatory bird
   • the rapacious wolf
   • raptorial birds
   • ravening wolves
   • a vulturine taste for offal
3. characterized by plundering or pillaging or marauding
   • bands of marauding Indians
   • predatory warfare
   • a raiding party