rapacious

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

adjective living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
adjective excessively greedy and grasping
adjective devouring or craving food in great quantities

Perhaps from rapacity + -ous, in any case ultimately from Latin rapāx (“grasping, greedy”).

The man is evidently rapacious. — Hector's Inheritance, Or, the Boys of Smith Institute, Horatio, Jr. Alger
They cropped it with rapacious greediness. — Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846, James Richardson
It sounded rapacious, I suppose, under the circumstances. — The Prairie Mother, Arthur Stringer

predatory, raptorial, ravening, vulturine, vulturous

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