Word.ws English Dictionary

saprophagy

saprophagy noun: the eating of non-living organic material.

Noun

saprophagy (uncountable)

  1. The eating of non-living organic material.
    Synonyms:
    detritivory

Synonyms of saprophagy

Origin of saprophagy

From sapro- (“putrid, rotten matter”) + -phagy (“to feed on, consume”).

Questions about saprophagy

What does saprophagy mean?
Saprophagy means the eating of non-living organic material.
What part of speech is saprophagy?
Saprophagy is a noun.

Words near saprophagy in the dictionary

  1. saprophagans
  2. saprophage
  3. saprophages
  4. saprophagic
  5. saprophagous
  6. saprophagy
  7. saprophile
  8. saprophiles
  9. saprophilous
  10. saprophytal
  11. saprophyte

Source and license

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