Definitions

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

  • adjective Living by seizing or taking prey; predatory.
  • adjective Given to victimizing, plundering, or destroying for one's own gain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Living by prey; disposed to prey or plunder; predatory.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Living by prey; predatory.

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

  • adjective Surviving by preying on other animals.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective living by or given to victimizing others for personal gain
  • adjective hunting and killing other animals for food

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin praedārī, to plunder; see predatory.]

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Examples

  • In the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, I've made my way through several articles over the last week: "Bistahieversor sealeyi, gen. et sp. nov., a new tyrannosauroid from New Mexico and the origin of deep snouts in Tyrannosauroidea"; "A reappraisal of the origin and basal radiation of the Osteichthyes"; and "Demythologizing Arctodus simus, the 'short-faced' long-legged predaceous bear that never was."

    "No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." greygirlbeast 2010

  • In the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, I've made my way through several articles over the last week: "Bistahieversor sealeyi, gen. et sp. nov., a new tyrannosauroid from New Mexico and the origin of deep snouts in Tyrannosauroidea"; "A reappraisal of the origin and basal radiation of the Osteichthyes"; and "Demythologizing Arctodus simus, the 'short-faced' long-legged predaceous bear that never was."

    "No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." docbrite 2010

  • They occur in cool running waters and are predaceous.

    Insecta (Aquatic) 2008

  • Most larvae are predaceous and feed on most other small invertebrates.

    Insecta (Aquatic) 2008

  • However, the problem with that scenario is that both adults and larvae of ladybugs are predaceous, but I doubt it very much that there would be enough prey on that bleak mountain top for so many of them to survive.

    Ladybugs galore AYDIN 2007

  • Adults and deutonymphs are predaceous and often feed upon the immature stages of the species that they parasitize as larvae.

    Arthropoda 2007

  • They are predaceous and usually feed on the insect larvae which they parasitized as larvae.

    Arthropoda 2007

  • However, the problem with that scenario is that both adults and larvae of ladybugs are predaceous, but I doubt it very much that there would be enough prey on that bleak mountain top for so many of them to survive.

    Archive 2007-12-01 AYDIN 2007

  • The Carabidae family encompasses about twenty thousand known species of mainly unspecialized, mainly predaceous beetles, abundant on all continents except Antarctica and on most islands.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • The predaceous mien that I witnessed earlier has been whomped out of him, and now he is miserable and scared and repentant.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

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