flesh-eating

adjective

flesh-eat·​ing ˈflesh-ˌē-tiŋ 

: feeding on or destroying flesh or soft tissue

A Kentucky man was diagnosed with a flesh-eating infection after he went camping along the Green River.

—Dayton (Ohio) Daily News

… infestation by blowflies whose eggs hatch into flesh-eating maggots.

—Kerry Capell

But according to Eugenie Clark, a University of Maryland zoologist, "the white shark, the largest flesh-eating fish, is anything but a mindless, constant eating machine."

—Discover

Natural history buffs will find … a 145-million-year-old foot from the Allosaur, one of the largest flesh-eating dinosaurs …

—Carolyn Hughes Crowley

see also flesh-eating bacterium, flesh-eating disease

Examples of flesh-eating in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Some vibrio vulnificus can lead to necrotizing fasciitis, a severe infection that causes the flesh around open wounds to die, leading many to call the bacteria 'flesh-eating. —Gabrielle M. Etzel, Washington Examiner, 23 Aug. 2023

Its appearance and ability to spread throughout the body if left untreated has prompted some to mistakenly refer to it as flesh-eating. —Brieanna J. Frank, USA TODAY, 10 May 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1588, in the meaning defined above