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voracious

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Having an extreme and insatiable appetite, whether for food, knowledge, or experience; describes an individual who is eagerly greedy and consuming.

Detailed Definition
Voracious usually describes someone or something that devours food hungrily, but it can also mean greedily acquisitive or insatiable. Here it sharpens the satire by suggesting the courtiers’ appetite for wealth, power, or advantage.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Lofty mansions, warm and spacious; / Courtiers cringing and voracious” (Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”); “voracious” literally suggests ravenous appetite, but often implies greed for wealth, attention, or power; Blake’s hungry city images make appetite a social critique; a contemporary poem could describe “voracious algorithms” consuming clicks, extending the word into digital life
Additional Notes
In "Courtiers cringing and voracious," the word is less common in everyday reading and may need looking up.; Found in the poem, January, 1795 by Mary Robinson
Also Known As
ravenous insatiable gluttonous greedy
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