cannibalize
pronunciation
How to pronounce cannibalize in British English:
UK [ˈkænɪbəlaɪz]
How to pronounce cannibalize in American English:
US [ˈkænəbəˌlaɪz]
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- Verb:
- eat human flesh
- use parts of something to repair something else
Word Origin
- cannibalize (v.)
- 1798 (in Burke's memoirs), figurative, and meaning "be perverted into cannibalism," from cannibal + -ize. Meaning "take parts from one construction and use them in another" is from 1943, originally of military equipment. Related: Cannibalized; cannibalizing.
Example
- 1. Publishers have made no secret of their dislike of kindle book pricing , which they fear will cannibalize higher-priced hardcover sales .
- 2. The contraction of the tape market revenue was largely the result of acute competition within the tape storage market where competitively priced tape automation continued to cannibalize dollar spent on branded single drives .
- 3. " I think this will appeal to the apple acolytes , but this is essentially just a really big ipod touch , " said charles golvin , an analyst at forrester research , adding that he expected the ipad to mostly cannibalize the sales of other apple products .
- 4. The mining community backed the idea , but worried it might cannibalize demand for gold-mining stocks .
- 5. A key concern has been that western companies would cannibalize mom-and-pop stores .