verbivorous

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English

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Adjective

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verbivorous (comparative more verbivorous, superlative most verbivorous)

  1. Consuming or devouring words.
    • 1969, Elementary English, volume 46, page 464:
      Tale of some "verbivorous" mice who nibble all the biggest words off the page of the professor's book.
    • 1997, Robert Campbell Roberts, Mark R. Talbot, Limning the Psyche: Explorations in Christian Psychology, page 81:
      In being verbivorous, humans are unique among the earth's creatures. We have a different kind of life than nonverbal animals, a kind of life that we can call generically “spiritual.”
    • 2000, Michael West, Transcendental Wordplay:
      Resembling the moose he describes, Thoreau meandered through lexicons, munching etymologies like some great verbivorous animal.
    • 2012, Richard Lederer, Amazing Words:
      The verbivorous author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll evinced a prodigious talent for merging two words and beheading parts of one or both.
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