rapacious

rapacious
    adj 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" [syn: {predatory}, {rapacious}, {raptorial},
           {ravening}, {vulturine}, {vulturous}]
    2: excessively greedy and grasping; "a rapacious divorcee on the
       prowl"; "ravening creditors"; "paying taxes to voracious
       governments" [syn: {rapacious}, {ravening}, {voracious}]
    3: devouring or craving food in great quantities; "edacious
       vultures"; "a rapacious appetite"; "ravenous as wolves";
       "voracious sharks" [syn: {edacious}, {esurient}, {rapacious},
       {ravening}, {ravenous}, {voracious}, {wolfish}]
    

Rapacious \Ra*pa"cious\ (r[.a]*p[=a]"sh[u^]s), a. [L. rapax,
   -acis, from rapere to seize and carry off, to snatch away.
   See {Rapid}.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by
      violence; seizing by force. " The downfall of the
      rapacious and licentious Knights Templar." --Motley.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Accustomed to seize food; subsisting on prey, or animals
      seized by violence; as, a tiger is a rapacious animal; a
      rapacious bird.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Avaricious; grasping; extortionate; also, greedy;
      ravenous; voracious; as, rapacious usurers; a rapacious
      appetite.
      [1913 Webster]

            [Thy Lord] redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious
            claim                                 --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Greedy; grasping; ravenous; voracious.
        [1913 Webster] -- {Ra*pa"cious*ly}, adv. --
        {Ra*pa"cious*ness}, n.
        [1913 Webster]
    

73 Moby Thesaurus words for "rapacious":
      Apician, a hog for, acquisitive, all-devouring, all-engulfing,
      avaricious, avid, bloodsucking, bolting, bottomless, coveting,
      covetous, cramming, crapulent, crapulous, devouring, edacious,
      esurient, extortionate, ferocious, fierce, glutting, gluttonizing,
      gluttonous, gobbling, gorging, grabby, grasping, greedy, gulping,
      guttling, guzzling, hoggish, hyperphagic, insatiable, insatiate,
      intemperate, limitless, lupine, mercenary, miserly, money-hungry,
      money-mad, omnivorous, overgreedy, parasitic, piggish, polyphagic,
      predacious, predatory, quenchless, raptorial, ravening, ravenous,
      sharkish, slakeless, sordid, stuffing, swinish, unappeasable,
      unappeased, unquenchable, unsated, unsatisfied, unslakeable,
      unslaked, usurious, venal, voracious, vulturine, vulturous,
      wolfing, wolfish