[f. as prec. + -ISM.] The practice of eating the flesh of one’s fellow-creatures. fig. Bloodthirsty barbarity.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, I. Wks. VIII. 178. By cannibalism, I mean their devouring, as a nutriment of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of those they have murdered.
1824. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit., Dk. Buckhm. (1866), 312. The political cannibalism of the mob.
1879. A. R. Wallace, Australasia, v. 93. Cannibalism is also practised in most of the tribes, human flesh being eaten not only from necessity but from choice.
