Other forms: predators
A predator is an animal that hunts and eats other animals. A lion running down a zebra, a heron standing still in a river, a spider waiting at the edge of its web.
Every predator has prey, and the two words come as a pair. An apex predator sits at the top of a food chain with nothing hunting it — a killer whale, a polar bear. The adjective is predatory, and it reaches beyond animals: a predatory lender pushes loans onto people who cannot repay them. Used of a person, predator is a heavy word, and you will meet it in the news as sexual predator or corporate predator. So the same noun does calm work in a nature documentary and does real damage on a front page, and you need to hear both.
1nounpredatorAn animal that hunts and kills other animals for food.
“Wolves are the main predators of deer in the region.”
synonyms: hunter
2nounorganisationA person or organisation that exploits others for gain.
“The report described the lender as a predator hunting for desperate borrowers.”
predator is a hunting animal.
The Latin praeda is prey, taken by force. A predator is built for exactly one purpose: to take its prey.
hooks ontoprey
Latin praedātor meant a plunderer, from praedor, 'to loot, to pillage', which came from praeda — 'booty, spoils, prey'. The robbery came first and the biology second: a predator was a raider carrying things off, and English prey is that same praeda in different clothes.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰed-
Latin
praedātor
English, today
predator
Built from
Latin praedātor, from praedor (“loot, pillage”), from praeda (“booty, spoils, prey”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA