Geophagia

//d͡ʒiəˈfeɪdʒə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Consumption of clay, chalk or dirt. uncountable

    "In fact, expectant mothers in many sub-Saharan African cultures routinely eat soils (a practice called geophagia)."

  2. 2
    eating earth, clay, chalk; occurs in some primitive tribes, sometimes in cases of nutritional deficiency or obsessive behavior wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
chthonophagiachthonophagiageophagygeophagypicapica

Example

More examples

"In fact, expectant mothers in many sub-Saharan African cultures routinely eat soils (a practice called geophagia)."

Etymology

From geo- + -phagia.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.