Where does “herbivorous” come from?
Herbivorous comes from New Latin herbivorus, from Latin herba meaning grass or herb, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European roots gʰreH₁- and gʷerh₃-.
herbivorous (English): Feeding chiefly on plants
Definitions
- Feeding chiefly on plants
Ancestry of “herbivorous”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | New Latin | herbivorus | — |
| 2 | Latin | -vorus | -eating, -devouring |
| 3 | Latin | -us | suffix forming adjectives from nouns, verbs,... |
| 4 | Old Latin | -os | accusative masculine plural of -us |
| 5 | Proto-Italic | -os | — |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | -ós | Creates agent nouns from verb stems, denoting... |
Words derived from “herbivorous”