definitelynotscott

anthropophagite [an-thruh-pof-uh-jahyt]

noun:
eater of human flesh; cannibal

Examples:

'Red Dragon,' which opens nationwide today, is a thriller too timid to thrill because it's the devil we not only know, but that audiences have come to love; it features the best known anthropophagite since Grendel stalked the world of Beowulf. (Elvis Mitchell, Film Review: Taking A Bite Out Of Crime, New York Times, October 2002)

Her prepublication party - an abstracted anthropophagite feast (the photo is by partygoer Bill Richert) - didn't include her dad's recipe for steak tartare, but given her point that we all have 'cannibals in our closets', I think it might come in handy if the global food crisis continues to worsen. (Mike Sula, Carole Travis-Henikoff's steak tartare, Chicago Tribune, June 2008)

The anthropophagites on 'The Walking Dead' on Sunday didn’t discriminate between Daryl the redneck and Rick, a sheriff’s deputy. (Elvis Mitchell, In a Hell, but in It Together, New York Times, October 2014)

The thoroughbred Anthropophagite usually begins with his own relations and friends; and so long as he confines his voracity to the domestic circle, the law interferes little, if at all, with his venerable propensities. (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It)

Are not all those sovereigns, who to gratify the vanity of the priesthood, torment and persecute their subjects, who sacrifice to their anthropophagite gods human victims, men whom superstitious zeal has converted into tygers? (baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbac, The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World)

Origin:

1807, from Greek anthrōpophagos 'man-eating,' from anthrōpos 'man, human' (see anthropo-) + phagos 'eating' (from PIE root bhag- 'to share out, apportion; to get a share') (Online Etymology Dictionary)

sploot [sploot]

verb:
(slang, of an animal) to lie flat on the stomach with the legs stretched out
noun:
the act or an instance of splooting

            
(click to enlarge)

There’s the classic sploot (one leg remains beneath the body while the other leg is kicked back), the side sploot (one leg is tucked under the body while the other is kicked out to the side) and a full sploot (the animal has kicked both legs behind the body, exhibiting a full body stretch). (Hannah Docter-Loeb, Who Sploots?, Slate, August 2022)

But even in the chillier climes like Laramie, squirrels will sploot on warmer days. The upside to what Koprowski called heat islands is that cement sidewalks, while also retaining heat, will retain cooler temperatures while in the shade. (Joshua Wood, U W Professor, Who Is World’s Foremost Authority On Squirrels, Says Splooting Is OK, Cowboy State Daily, August 2022)

Snellby Kay said her household refers to the position as "road kill pose," and Brianna Portillo called it the "sploot." (Sophie Lloyd, Cat's Bizarre Sleeping Position Confuses Internet: 'Airplane Mode', Newsweek, July 2023)

I think a senior cat who still gets the zoomies would love her own bean bag chair to sploot in! (Eve Vawter, Scottish Fold Cat’s Beanbag Sploot Is the AMSR Therapy Session We Didn’t Know We Needed, Parade Pets, April 2025)

Origin:

Sploot is part of a growing lexicon of 'DoggoLingo', which uses cute, deliberate misspellings and onomatopoeias like mlem, blep, smol, borf, and heckin to fawn over man’s best friend online - and the many, many pictures and videos we post of them. While the exact origins of sploot are unclear, lexicographer Grant Barrett of the A Way with Words radio show has suggested that the term sploot may riff on the word splat to characterize the splat-like (flat, spread-out) appearance of a sploot pose. This wordplay mirrors other changes made to existing words in DoggoLingo, like the substitution of chonky for chunky. Sploot is especially associated with corgis, a squat breed of dogs with very short legs. The use of sploot, as associated with pets, is evidenced by at least 2012. (Dictionary.com)