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cannibalism

UK/ˈkanɪbəlɪz(ə)m/US/ˈkanɪbəlɪz(ə)m/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,141 of 15,258neutral

Cannibalism is the eating of the flesh of your own kind. Acts of cannibalism, cannibalism among fish, resort to cannibalism.

It is common in the animal world and unremarkable to biologists, since many fish and insects eat their own young routinely. In business the word means a company's new product taking sales from its own older one.

Definitions of cannibalism

  1. 1nouncannibalismThe eating of the flesh of your own kind.B2+

    “The shipwrecked sailors were so starved that some of them turned to cannibalism.”

cannibalism is an eating.

Where it comes from

  1. Spanish

    caníbal

  2. English

    cannibal

  3. English, today

    cannibalism

From cannibal + -ism. cannibal Borrowed from Spanish caníbal. Borrowed from Spanish caníbal, from tnq caniba, the Taíno form recorded by Christopher Columbus for the Caribs, who were greatly feared. From an awd - language, probably tnq -, and ultimately from sai-car-pro karipona (“person”). a doublet of Carib and caribe and Garifuna and Carijona and Kari'na and Caribbean.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

cannibalism in the wild

  • Human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings.

    Human cannibalism

  • A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal.

    Human cannibalism

  • Soft vore fantasies are separated from sexual fantasies of cannibalism, also referred to as "hard vore", because the soft vore victim is normally swallowed alive and whole.

    Vorarephilia

  • Generally, only the consumption of flesh (including organ meat such as heart or liver) by an individual of the same species is considered cannibalism.

    Autocannibalism

  • In line with this usage, self-cannibalism means the consumption of flesh from one's own body.

    Autocannibalism

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the caníbal family

cannibalcannibalism

cannibalism — used about once every 5,793 pages · #10,141 · point at the bar for the others