A voracious individual feeds quickly and consumes large amounts of food.
Voracious is an adjective that comes from vorax , a Latin term. The concept refers to someone who eats very quickly and ingests large amounts of food .
For example: “The lion is a voracious animal that can eat up to forty kilograms in a day” , “I have never seen a man so voracious: after gobbling down three hamburgers and an entire pizza, he asked for a sandwich” , “This child is voracious” . "I don't know what to feed him anymore."
The adjective can also be applied to appetite or hunger that leads to eating a lot: “I have a voracious appetite, I think I could eat a whole cow,” “The soldiers returned from the war with a voracious hunger.”
Voracious beyond feeding
Beyond the context of food , the idea of voracious is used to describe that which generates very rapid destruction or whose consumption is rapid : “A voracious fire destroyed the home in a few minutes,” “We have to be prepared to fight voracious fires given the drought and high temperatures” , “A voracious avalanche destroyed everything in its path” , “I was always a voracious reader” .
In this sense, the door is opened to meanings that can have a positive or negative connotation. On the one hand, the idea of a raging fire , a wind or a volcanic eruption that causes destruction in its wake is opposed to the need that an inveterate reader feels to devour new works. In fact, this duality of the concept can be seen in many other examples, although it is not a term widely used in everyday speech.
Someone who is greedy and lusts for power can be referred to as voracious.
Synonyms and antonyms
It is interesting to analyze the various synonyms of the word voracious, since among them we find some that can also be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand there are the following: glutton, glutton , hungry, glutton, insatiable and swallower . Two antonyms belonging to this group can be unappetizing and listless . But we also have the synonyms: strong, active, intense, violent, destroyer and devourer . In this case, two possible antonyms are sober and moderate .
If we take the terms glutton or glutton , for example, it goes without saying that the only negative aspect they can have is the impact on the health of those who eat without moderation. However, insatiable can also be understood in a figurative sense, and used in cases similar to those explained above with voracious : it is not uncommon to come across phrases like "an insatiable fire" , "an insatiable tornado" or even "an insatiable reader" . In these cases, their respective antonyms can work in certain examples, although perhaps not to directly replace the original terms, since we could not speak of "an unappetizing fire" or an "apathetic reader."
Voracious associated with greed
Greed is also associated with greed and the desire for power, especially when the subject does not measure the consequences of his actions. A voracious person, in this sense, justifies the means by which he seeks to achieve his objectives; In other words, fulfilling your wishes outweighs the harm you may cause to others along the way.
With this meaning it is also possible to use the term insatiable , although not as a direct synonym, since it does not seem to imply the lack of concern for the consequences set out in the previous paragraph.
Other uses of the term
The American film “The Blob” , on the other hand, was known in several Latin American countries as “La stain voracious” . Released in 1958 , it tells the story of an extraterrestrial organism that attacks people.
A greedy algorithm , finally, appeals to the best option at each stage to arrive at an optimal solution. It is a technique that is generally used to solve problems related to programming or optimization .