Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The eating of earthy substances, such as clay or chalk, practiced among various peoples as a custom or for dietary or subsistence reasons.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act or practice of eating earth, as dirt, clay, chalk, etc. See dirt-eating. Also geophagism.
Wiktionary
- n. The practice of eating earthy substances such as clay and chalk, often thought to augment a mineral-deficient diet.
WordNet 3.0
- n. eating earth, clay, chalk; occurs in some primitive tribes, sometimes in cases of nutritional deficiency or obsessive behavior
Etymologies
- From geo- (earth) and the suffix -phagy (to feed on) (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Well, you might be surprised that many cultures, from the ancient Greeks to modern-day Saharan tribes participate in geophagy – or eating dirt.”
“In fact, dirt eating, known as geophagy, is so prevalent in some parts of the world that scientists and anthropologists think that nutritional deficits may bring on the craving.”
“Far from being a dysfunctional behavior, geophagy has evolved as a practice for maintaining health amongst chimpanzees.”
“An interesting press release here, on geophagy (soil eating) in chimpanzees.”
“In this particular study (1), to be published online this week in Springers journal Naturwissenschaften, geophagy increases the potency of ingested plants with anti-malarial properties.”
“The deliberate ingestion of soil, or geophagy, has important health benefits for chimpanzees, according to Sabrina Krief and her colleagues from the Muséum National dHistoire Naturelle in Paris, France.”
“Anyway, there was a really good Nova? special on geophagy 5-6 years ago.”
“Known as geophagy or "earth eating" macaws feed on clays to counteract poisons from the seeds in fruit they eat.”
“Never mind that geophagy was and probably still is practiced right here in the US of A.”
“The attention of physiologists, since my return from the Orinoco, having been powerfully directed to these phenomena of geophagy, M. Leschenault (one of the naturalists of the expedition to the Antarctic regions under the command of captain Baudin) has published some curious details on the tanaampo, or ampo, of the”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘geophagy’.
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phrontistery - g
from phrontistery.info
gynaecology, gynaecomania, gyromancy, gyrograph, gyve, gyrus, gyron, gynaecocracy, gyrose, gynics, gutturotetany, gymnophobia and 439 more...
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A Sequel to 250 Spelling Words
Words to quiz the intermediate and advanced speller alike
amatorio, esemplastic, etesian, cholecystitis, chantepleure, paternoster, mondegreen, aporia, kairos, idioglossia, klepht, phansigar and 238 more...
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some words
phatic, macerate, amanuenses, theophagy, seraglio, gloaming, geophagy, metaphone, anastrophe, neologism, tetragrammaton, bête noire and 568 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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msc's Words
pugilist, threepeat, bloviate, palaver, syncreism, pastiche, eschatology, peripatetic, glossolalia, busker, nudnik, troglodyte and 213 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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Geology Words
The descriptive science described.
earth, lithosphere, mineral, convection, heat flow, ore, deep time, fossil, formation, rock, tectonics, extinction and 281 more...
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About food and/or eating/drinking
guttle, fress, ventripotent, comestible, spatchcock, geophagy, depascent, edacious, apivorous, oligophagous, provender, chyme and 4 more...
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G
gloaming, gambol, garrulous, gasconade, geminate, gendarme, gendarmerie, genuflect, glebe, granoblastic, geloscopy, galère and 15 more...
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gennessee's Words
rapscallion, sniffy, mizzle, rood, cachinnation, eldritch, crepitation, virid, riant, chary, geophagy, inveigle and 8 more...
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You gonna eat that?
Man isst was man isst.
pica, allotriophagy, pagophagia, geophagy, trichophagia, coprophagia, cittosis, amylophagia, lithophagia, acuphagia, coniophagia, bibliophagia and 30 more...
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Working List
Words that I put on Wordie for easy looking-up.
crescive, dyscalculia, farrago, geophagy, morigeration, onomastics, parvenuism, philippic, prairillon, resipiscence, roscian, schwarmerei and 9 more...
Tweets
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