Word.ws English Dictionary

life/dinner principle

life/dinner principle is the alternative form of life-dinner principle.

Meaning of life-dinner principle

Noun

life-dinner principle

  1. (evolutionary theory) A principle of asymmetry in selective pressure between predators and prey.
    • The life-dinner principle (unequal selection pressures) ¶ ‘The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner’ (Dawkins 1979, after Aesop). There is a built in imbalance between predator and prey with respect to the penalty...1979, Richard Dawkins, John Krebs, “Arms races between and within species”, in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, volume 205, page 493

Questions about life/dinner principle

What is life/dinner principle the alternative form of?
Life/dinner principle is the alternative form of life-dinner principle.

Words near life/dinner principle in the dictionary

  1. life-telling
  2. life-tellings
  3. life-threatening
  4. life-time
  5. life-times
  6. life/dinner principle
  7. lifeaholic
  8. lifeaholics
  9. lifebar
  10. lifebars
  11. lifebelt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: life/dinner principle (page history and authors); life-dinner principle (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.

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