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Synonyms

herbivore

American  
[hur-buh-vawr, -vohr] / ˈhɜr bəˌvɔr, -ˌvoʊr /

noun

  1. a herbivorous animal.

herbivore British  
/ ˈhɜːbɪˌvɔː /

noun

  1. an animal that feeds on grass and other plants

  2. informal a liberal, idealistic, or nonmaterialistic person

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
herbivore Scientific  
/ hûr′bə-vôr′,ûr′- /

  1. An animal that feeds mainly or only on plants. In a food chain, herbivores are primary consumers.

  2. Compare carnivore detritivore

herbivore Cultural  

  1. A living thing that eats only plants. Cattle, sheep, and horses are herbivores.

Etymology

Origin of herbivore

1850–55; < New Latin herbivorus; herb, -i-, -vore

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Students must do a training stint in each of four main categories — carnivore, herbivore, bird and primate — so they may wind up working with animals they find unpleasant.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 11, 2025

The medium-sized herbivore once roamed the floodplains of what is now the island's south-west coast.

From BBC • Aug. 22, 2025

The newest — described on Thursday by a team of researchers in the journal PeerJ — is Lokiceratops rangiformis, a five-ton herbivore with spectacular, curving brow horns and huge, bladed spikes on its meter-long frill.

From New York Times • Jun. 20, 2024

Deprived of a primary herbivore, the reefs succumbed to algal overgrowth and never fully recovered.

From Science Magazine • May 28, 2024

Big mammalian herbivore species react to danger from predators or humans in different ways.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.