Definitions

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

  • noun An animal that feeds chiefly on plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A herbivorous animal; one of the Herbivora.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the Herbivora.

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

  • noun Any animal that eats only vegetation (i.e. that eats no meat).

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

  • noun any animal that feeds chiefly on grass and other plants

Etymologies

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

[From New Latin Herbivora, former mammalian group, from neuter pl. of herbivorus, plant-eating; see herbivorous.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin herbivorus ("grass-eater").

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Examples

Comments

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  • As if I didn't already have enough pet peeves about language, I seem to have developed a new peeve: People using "vegetarian" to mean "herbivore". For example: "That buffalo looks scary, but don't worry, he's a vegetarian!" or "Scientists have announced that the newly-discovered dinosaur was vegetarian".

    Here's my rant: It's impossible for an herbivore to be a vegetarian! An herbivore is a creature that cannot eat meat. A vegetarian is someone who could eat meat, but chooses not to. Therefore, herbivores can't be vegetarians -- only omnivores can!

    Grumble grumble grumble. Stupid people with their stupid words.

    September 4, 2013

  • you may want to avoid the definition for vegetarian...

    September 4, 2013

  • vegetarian

    Definitions

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

    n. One who practices vegetarianism.

    n. A herbivore.

    September 4, 2013