Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several Central and South American mammals of the suborder Vermilingua that lack teeth and feed on ants and termites, especially the giant anteater.
  • noun Any of several other animals, including the echidna, aardvark, and pangolin, that feed on ants.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several animals, in suborder Vermilingua, which are noted for eating ants and termites which they catch with their long sticky tongues.
  • noun A common term used of some other unrelated species that feed with ants, including pangolin (scaly anteater), echidna (spiny anteater), aardvark and numbat (banded anteater).

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ant +‎ eater

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word anteater.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Usage note:

    "...leaving them on a broad veranda with a number of domesticated creatures on it, marmosets of three different kinds, an old bald toucan, a row of sleepy parrots, something hairy in the background that might have been a sloth or an anteater or even a doormat but that it farted from time to time, looking around censoriously on each occasion, and a strikingly elegant blue heron that walked in and out."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 177

    February 21, 2008

  • Anteaters prefer termites to ants.

    May 7, 2008