Grass-eater

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An organism notable for eating grass
  2. 2
    A celibate man, especially a Japanese man, who eschews dating and sexual relationships. derogatory, slang

    "That is what the modern men of Japan have done, these grass-eaters."

  3. 3
    An organism notable for eating grass; A fish of species Distichodus rostratus or Distichodus engycephalus, of Africa
  4. 4
    A police officer who accepts offered bribes but does not actively seek them out. figuratively

    "But why do police become grass-eaters at all, if they lack the greed and contempt fo decency necessary to become meat-eaters?"

Synonyms

All synonyms
herbivore man

Example

More examples

"But why do police become grass-eaters at all, if they lack the greed and contempt fo decency necessary to become meat-eaters?"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From grass + eater; applied to bribe-accepting polics by the Knapp Commission in the 1970s.

Etymology 2

Calque of Japanese 草食系男子 (sōshokukei danshi, “herbivorous/grass-eating male”).

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