Word.ws English Dictionary

cannibalize

/ˈkænɪbəlaɪz/US/ˈkænɪbəlaɪz/

cannibalize is the alternative form of cannibalise.

Meaning of cannibalise

Verb

cannibalise (third-person singular simple present cannibalises, present participle cannibalising, simple past and past participle cannibalised)

  1. (UK, transitive) To eat (parts of) another of one's own species.
    • The female black widow spider is known to cannibalise the male.
  2. (UK, transitive) To remove parts of (a machine, etc) for use in other similar machines.
    • to cannibalize an old laptop for parts
  3. (UK, transitive) To reduce sales or market share (for one of one's own products) by introducing another.
    • iPad mini to cannibalize 1M full-size iPad sales.2012 October 17, electronista
  4. (UK) Rework old material; rehash.
    • When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the...2012 August 21, Jason Heller, “The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review)”, in The Onion AV Club

Forms of cannibalize

third-person singular presentcannibalizes
present participlecannibalizing
past participlecannibalized
pastcannibalized

Questions about cannibalize

What is cannibalize the alternative form of?
Cannibalize is the alternative form of cannibalise.
How do you pronounce cannibalize?
Cannibalize is pronounced /ˈkænɪbəlaɪz/ (UK).

Words near cannibalize in the dictionary

  1. cannibalistical
  2. cannibalistically
  3. cannibality
  4. cannibalization
  5. cannibalizations
  6. cannibalize
  7. cannibalized
  8. cannibalizes
  9. cannibalizing
  10. cannibally
  11. cannibals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cannibalize (page history and authors); cannibalise (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cannibalize.wav.

Cite this entry: “cannibalize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cannibalize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.