cannibalism

Noun

cannibalism (usually uncountable, plural cannibalisms)

1. (usually) The act of eating another of one's own species.
   • Cannibalism does not openly figure amongst aboriginal misdeeds, but in the northern part of Queensland it is no uncommon vice.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 31
   • Evidence for cannibalism abounds - even if circumstantial - both from the modern world and throughout history, but academic anthropology has found itself in a funk of denial. […] Considered globally, cannibalism should be less a moral issue than one of custom. I like Marmite, but then I have been...2000 September 7, Henry Gee, “Eating people - is it bad taste?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 May 2014
2. (figuratively, usually) An act in which one thing consumes or takes over another of the same kind.
3. (usually) In speech, the occurrence of one word eliding part or all of the next word, because the syllables are the same.