Word.ws English Dictionary

oophagy

UK/əʊˈɒfədʒi/

oophagy noun: the eating of eggs; (now especially) the cannibalization of subordinate eggs within a homogeneous population or the uterus; particularly as it relates to certain insect and aquatic species.

Noun

oophagy (uncountable)

  1. The eating of eggs; (now especially) the cannibalization of subordinate eggs within a homogeneous population or the uterus; particularly as it relates to certain insect and aquatic species.
    • A number of shark species go in for oophagy, or uterine cannibalism.2015, Theo Tait, ‘Don't wear yum-yum yellow’, London Review of Books, volume 34, number 15

Synonyms of oophagy

Origin of oophagy

From oo- + -phagy, originally after German Oophagie.

Questions about oophagy

What does oophagy mean?
Oophagy means the eating of eggs; (now especially) the cannibalization of subordinate eggs within a homogeneous population or the uterus; particularly as it relates to certain insect and aquatic species.
What part of speech is oophagy?
Oophagy is a noun.
How do you pronounce oophagy?
Oophagy is pronounced /əʊˈɒfədʒi/ (UK).

Words near oophagy in the dictionary

  1. ooparts
  2. ooped
  3. ooph
  4. oophagic
  5. oophagous
  6. oophagy
  7. oopherectomies
  8. oopherectomy
  9. oophor-
  10. oophore
  11. oophorectomies

Source and license

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