a. [f. L. carnivor-us (f. carni- flesh + -vorus devouring) + -OUS.]
1. Eating or feeding on flesh; applied to those animals which naturally prey on other animals, and spec. to the order CARNIVORA.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. x. Many there are … which eate no salt at all, as all carnivorous animals.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 6. In all Flyes, more conspicuously in Carnivorous or Flesh-Flyes.
1797. Bewick, Brit. Birds (1847), I. Introd. p. ix. Birds may be distinguished, like quadrupeds, into two kinds or classes—granivorous and carnivorous.
1833. Mrs. Browning, Prometh. Bd., Poems (1850), I. 187. Zeus’s winged hound, The strong carnivorous eagle.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., i. (1852), 34. The carnivorous beetles, or Carabidæ.
1879. A. R. Wallace, Australasia, iii. 56–7. Dasyuridæ, or ‘native cats,’ which are carnivorous marsupials preying upon the other groups.
2. Bot. Applied to those plants which absorb and digest animal substances as food.
1868. Sci. Opinion, i. 16. The highly interesting carnivorous plants.
1878. McNab, Bot., iv. (1883), 95. Some plants … obtain a part of [their nitrogenous food] in a peculiar manner. These are the so-called carnivorous plants.
3. Med. Applied to caustics as destructive of flesh.
1881. in Syd. Soc. Lex.
Hence Carnivorously adv., Carnivorousness.
1837. Marryat, Dog-fiend, xxxviii. The sow … was carnivorously inclined.
1858. Hogg, Life Shelley, II. 446. He dined carnivorously.
1856. Chamb. Jrnl., V. 133. Carnivorousness is an aberration of humanity, and a semi-return to the diet of beasts.
