Meaning & use
voracious
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Eating or wanting to eat huge amounts of food; extremely hungry.
Grammar: Usually comes before a noun: a voracious eater, a voracious predator.
Patterns
- a voracious appetite
- a voracious eater
The caterpillars are voracious and can strip a bush of leaves in a day.
After the long hike, the whole group sat down with voracious appetites.
Pike are voracious predators that will attack almost anything small enough to swallow.
adjectivecomparablefigurative
Extremely eager and unable to get enough of an activity, especially reading or learning.
Grammar: Used figuratively before a noun: a voracious reader.
Patterns
- a voracious reader
- a voracious desire for something
As a child she was a voracious reader who finished a novel every two days.
The company has a voracious demand for new data.
His voracious curiosity led him to take apart every gadget in the house.
Word forms
| comparative | more voracious |
|---|---|
| superlative | most voracious |
Common combinations
- voracious appetite
- The teenager has a voracious appetite after football practice.
- voracious reader
- My grandfather was a voracious reader of history books.
- voracious predator
- The shark is a voracious predator of smaller fish.
- voracious curiosity
- Her voracious curiosity impressed every teacher she met.
- voracious consumer
- He is a voracious consumer of podcasts.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ravenous
- Ravenous describes being extremely hungry at a particular moment, while voracious describes a habit or a general large appetite.
- greedy
- Greedy is critical and suggests wanting more than your fair share, but voracious can sound admiring when applied to reading.
- insatiable
- Insatiable stresses that the desire can never be satisfied, whereas voracious stresses the huge quantity consumed.
- gluttonous
- Gluttonous is always negative and about overeating, while voracious is more neutral.
Opposites
Word family
- voraciously adverb
- in an extremely hungry or eager way
- voracity noun
- the quality of being voracious
- voraciousness noun
- another noun for the quality of being voracious
Commonly confused: voracious or veracious?
voracious vs veracious
Veracious means truthful and is pronounced differently; do not use it for hunger or eagerness.
Practice
Maya has always been a ___ reader, finishing three books a week.
Choose one answer.
Voracious reader is a standard collocation meaning someone who reads eagerly and a great deal. A picky reader would read little because of strict taste.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “voracious”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.