cannibalism

cannibal +‎ -ism

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cannibalism (usually uncountable, plural cannibalisms)

1. The act of eating another of one's own species.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 31:

     Cannibalism does not openly figure amongst aboriginal misdeeds, but in the northern part of Queensland it is no uncommon vice.

2. (figurative) An act in which one thing consumes or takes over another of the same kind.
3. (linguistics) In speech, the occurrence of one word eliding part or all of the next word, because the syllables are the same. For example, "Look, an MIT shirt" for "Look, an MIT T-shirt".

• kuru
• mad cow disease
• prion
• anthropophagy

• cannibalism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia