man-eater

plural man-eaters · alternative maneater · alternative man eater

1. An animal that attacks and kills humans for food, such as certain tigers or sharks; any animal that consumes human flesh.

   Man-eaters are more newsworthy than three-foot-long harmless sharks with tiny teeth.

   1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 146

   2 more examples

   And particularly, he knows where to find the primitive substance of the man eater: howsoever evaporate or reduced, as it were, into air or vapour, by sweat or perspiration.

   1776, Thomas Boston, The Human Nature in its Fourfold State, page 336

   His origin amongst monsters and man-eaters signals the play's recurrent concerns with monstrification, with eating others or being eaten by them, and with issues of specularity […]

   1995, Bradley William Johnson, Birthed Effects: Shakespeare's Generation of Monsters, page 67

2. A carnivorous plant large enough to consume a human; a man-eating plant.
3. A cannibal; a human that eats other humans.

   A stout ferocious-looking fellow, with muscular bandy legs, came in as I was conversing on the subject of cannibalism, and was pointed out to me as a celebrated marksman and man eater.

   1827 February 2, The Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, Hobart, page 2, column 2

   1 more example

   For how a race of Man-eaters should spring up in these islands, when none of the nations on the continents from whence they must derive their original are charged with these savage customs, is not easy to conceive[.]

   1724, Thomas Salmon, Modern History, Or, The Present State of All Nations, page 287

4. broadlyslangA seductive dangerous woman, often readily taking and discarding male romantic partners.

   "That only proves she has affairs with them too. She's a man-eater."

   1945, Norman Lindsay, The Cousin from Fiji, page 233

   1 more example

   Watch out, boy, she'll chew you up (Oh-oh, here she comes) She's a maneater

   1982 September 28, Sara Allen, Daryl Hall, John Oates, “Maneater”, in H₂O, performed by Hall & Oates

   Synonyms: femme fatale, enchantress, femme fatale, mantrap, seductress, she-wolf, siren, temptress