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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

detritivore.

An organism that feeds on detritus.

11 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɛˈtɹaɪtɪvɔː/Received-Pronunciation/-ˈtɹɪ-/Received-Pronunciation/dəˈtɹaɪtəvɔɹ/General-American/-ˈtɹɪ-/General-American
  1. An organism that feeds on detritus.

Where this word comes from

From German Detritivore, from Latin dētrītus (“the act of rubbing away”) (from dēterō (“to rub away, to rub off, to wear out”), from dē- (“away; down”) + terō (“to rub; to wear away, to wear out”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, to rub by twisting; to twist, to turn”)) + Latin vorāre (from vorō (“to devour, to eat greedily; to swallow up”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour”)). Analyzable as detritus + -i- + -vore.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.