carnivore
noun
Simple meaning
An organism that feeds chiefly on animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahrnihvawrSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑɹnɪvɔɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
zoology
A mammal belonging to the order Carnivora.
An organism that feeds chiefly on animals; an animal that feeds on meat as the main part of its diet.
informal
A person who is not a vegetarian.
A computer system designed by the FBI to monitor e-mail and electronic communications
informal
A follower of the carnivore diet.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An organism that feeds chiefly on animals; an animal that feeds on meat as the main part of its diet.
Used this way, carnivore is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use carnivore
- “Terrestrial carnivores have four or five clawed digits on each limb.”noun
- “Tyrannosaurus Rex was a large carnivore.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Relating to or characteristic of carnivores.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.