herbivore
Americannoun
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herbivores
plural
noun
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an animal that feeds on grass and other plants
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informal a liberal, idealistic, or nonmaterialistic person
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An animal that feeds mainly or only on plants. In a food chain, herbivores are primary consumers.
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Compare carnivore detritivore
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of herbivore
Explanation
Given a choice between a sirloin steak and a pile of grass, an herbivore will take the grass every time. If grass isn't on the menu, a salad will do. Herbivores eat plants. The herb in herbivore reminds you that herbivores eat plants rather than other animals. If you know any giraffes, deer, or vegetarians, you might have some herbivore friends. If you have a friend named Herb, let him know he's safe around them. Unless Herb is your favorite houseplant.
Vocabulary lists containing herbivore
Life Science: Ecosystems
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Ecology - Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems - Introductory
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Ecology - Introductory
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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.
See Examples For:
Guillermo Deferrari, of Ushuaia's scientific research center, downplayed the landfill theory, explaining that the colilargo is herbivore and lives off seeds and fruit found in forested ecosystems, not in dumps, where the common rat feeds.
From Barron's ● May 12, 2026
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 Edmontosaurus, another herbivore, roamed the forests like the Pachyrhinosaurus - and is helping palaeontologists build up a picture of this ancient land.
From BBC ● May 19, 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
If instead you want to grow 1,000 pounds of carnivore, you have to feed it 10,000 pounds of herbivore grown on 100,000 pounds of corn.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Researchers believe the giant herbivores roamed during the Pleistocene epoch, spanning from 2.5 million years ago until their extinction about 11,700 years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026
The lake shores supported a remarkable variety of herbivores.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026
Reintroducing wild horses and other herbivores to keep vegetation in check appeals to environmentalists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
They’re the base of the aquatic food chain, fed on by herbivores of all shapes and sizes, including shrimp and juvenile fish, which in turn feed organisms higher up the food chain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026
The importance of domesticated mammals rests on surprisingly few species of big terrestrial herbivores.
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.
