voracious applies especially to habitual gorging with food or drink.
teenagers are often voracious eaters
gluttonous applies to one who delights in eating or acquiring things especially beyond the point of necessity or satiety.
an admiral who was gluttonous for glory
ravenous implies excessive hunger and suggests violent or grasping methods of dealing with food or with whatever satisfies an appetite.
a nation with a ravenous lust for territorial expansion
rapacious often suggests excessive and utterly selfish acquisitiveness or avarice.
rapacious developers indifferent to environmental concerns
Examples of rapacious in a Sentence
nothing livens things up like a whole team of rapacious basketball players descending upon the pizza parlor rapacious mammals, such as coyotes, foxes, and bobcats
Recent Examples on the WebBlack holes are often depicted as rapacious, inescapable gobblers, but occasionally, these messy eaters can spew material, too.—Shi En Kim, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Sep. 2024 A lot of claims were made then about how when everything shook out, music and musicians would be better off without the filter of the rapacious music industry.—Mark Gimein, theweek, 13 Aug. 2024 In his Philippics, a series of vitriolic speeches lambasting Antony, Cicero cast Fulvia as a bloodthirsty and rapacious villainess.—Daisy Dunn, Smithsonian Magazine, 30 July 2024 Our hunger, since the Second World War, has become rapacious.—Katherine Rundell, The New Yorker, 29 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for rapacious
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rapacious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Latin rapāc-, rapāx "given to seizing or catching things (as prey), carrying away, excessively grasping" (from rapere "to seize and carry off" + -āc-, -āx, deverbal suffix denoting habitual or successful performance) + -ious — more at rapid entry 1, audacious
Share