rapacious
ra·pa·cious
adjective
1.
living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
- “a predatory bird”
- “the rapacious wolf”
- “raptorial birds”
- “ravening wolves”
- “a vulturine taste for offal”
2.
excessively greedy and grasping
- “a rapacious divorcee on the prowl”
- “ravening creditors”
- “paying taxes to voracious governments”
Origin
Perhaps from rapacity + -ous, in any case ultimately from Latin rapāx (“grasping, greedy”) + -acious.
Related words
Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.