Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An organism that lives by preying on other organisms.
  • noun A person or group that robs, victimizes, or exploits others for gain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun any animal or other organism that hunts and kills other organisms (their prey), primarily for food
  • noun someone who attacks and plunders for gain

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any animal that lives by preying on other animals
  • noun someone who attacks in search of booty

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin praedātor, pillager, from praedārī, to plunder; see predatory.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin praedātor, from praedor ("loot, pillage"), from praeda ("booty, spoils, prey").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word predator.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.