It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 24th. Today's word is veracious, spelled V-O-R-A-A-N-G-G-N-G-N-G-N-G-T-E-N-G-N-T-E-N-T-T-E-A-C-I-O-U-S.

Voracious is an adjective.

It describes someone who has a huge appetite.

It can also be used figuratively to mean excessively eager, as

in a voracious reader.

Here's the word used in a sentence from CNN by Hillary Whiteman.

Kane toads are unwelcome in Australia because the bulbous amphibian is a voracious

eater that when stressed releases a toxin strong enough to kill lizards, snakes, crocodiles, almost anything

that dares to attack it. In a suburban setting, that includes dogs and cats.

Voracious is one of several English words that come from the Latin verb Vorare, which means to eat greedily or to devour.

Vorare is also an ancestor of the word devour and of the Iveris words that describe the diets of various creatures.

These include carnivorous meaning meat eating, herborous meeting plant eating omnivorous meaning

feeding on both animals and plants fruit givorous meaning fruit eating graminivorous meaning feeding on grass and pissivorous meaning fish eating

with your word of the day I'm Peter Sokolovsky.

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