grasseater
grasseater noun: a white person, especially an Irishman. Also the alternative spelling of grass-eater.
Noun
grasseater (plural grasseaters)
- A white person, especially an Irishman.
- When the "green mouths," as the impoverished Irish grasseaters were dubbed, entered the United States, they brought cholera, consumption, and typhus with them.2002, Jan Pottker, Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, page 12
- A herbivore or similar grazing animal.
- And most of those grasseaters like horses, ox, camels, and llamas had shown early appearance on earth and since its early Cainozoic.2010, Anwar A Abdullah, East West - Sword and Word, page 289
- A vegetarian or vegan.
- Founded in 1898, when vegetarians were regarded as “grasseaters,” this restaurant has more than proved its staying power.2009, Robert I. C. Fisher, Fodor's Switzerland, page 51
Also used as
grasseater is also the alternative spelling of grass-eater.
Forms of grasseater
| plural | grasseaters |
|---|
Origin of grasseater
From grass + eater. Originally in reference to the Irish potato famine, implying that grass was all the Irish had left in their diet.
Questions about grasseater
- What does grasseater mean?
- Grasseater means a white person, especially an Irishman.
- What part of speech is grasseater?
- Grasseater is a noun.
- What is the plural of grasseater?
- The plural of grasseater is grasseaters.
Words near grasseater in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grasseater (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: En-au-grasseater.ogg.
Cite this entry: “grasseater.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grasseater. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.