coprophagy
coprophagy noun: the act or an instance of eating feces.
Noun
coprophagy (uncountable)
- The act or an instance of eating feces.
- We use "coprophagy" as the simplest available general term to describe ingestion of the feces, without any implication of cause, circumstances, or the origin or nature of fecal material consumed.1980, G. J. Kenagy, D. F. Hoyt, “Reingestion of Feces in Rodents and Its Daily Rhythmicity”, in Oecologia, volume 44, number 3, page 403
- Other studies postulate that dogs practice coprophagy in an attempt to conserve digestive enzymes, in particular protelytic enzymes and amylase (McCuistion, 1966).1989, Nutrition and Management of Dogs and Cats, page 38
- Synonyms:
- scatophagy
coprophagy meaning in Tamil, Indonesian, Persian and Vietnamese
coprophagy in Tamil
- தன் கழிவு உண்ணுதல்
coprophagy in Indonesian
- the eating of feces
- koprofagia
coprophagy in Persian
- the eating of feces
- مدفوعخواری madfu'-xâri
coprophagy in Vietnamese
- the eating of feces
- động vật ăn phân
Synonyms of coprophagy
Forms of coprophagy
| alternative form | coprophagia |
|---|
Origin of coprophagy
From copro- (“excrement”) + -phagy (“to feed on”).
Questions about coprophagy
- What does coprophagy mean?
- Coprophagy means the act or an instance of eating feces.
- What is coprophagy in Tamil?
- Coprophagy in Tamil is தன் கழிவு உண்ணுதல். See Coprophagy meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is coprophagy?
- Coprophagy is a noun.
Words near coprophagy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coprophagy (page history and authors); coprophagy (Tamil Wiktionary) (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:
Cite this entry: “coprophagy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coprophagy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.