predationn.

a1500 (a1475) G. Ashby Dicta Philosophorum 968 in Poems (1899) 86 (MED) On erthe ther is no thing so vnsemyng As a kynge to be in predacion Or by compulsion to be taking.

1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry VIII f. cxliii This sodain visitacion or predacion, cleane shaued them. [margin] Predacion, that is a robbery.

1655 C. Barksdale tr. H. Grotius Of Law Warre & Peace iii. 654 Such predation will chiefly hurt; not the generality of the Enemies, nor the King, nor those that are in themselves nocent, but the innocent.

1664 J. Evelyn Sylva 12 The good Husbands expected..that the Fruit should improve, as freed from the predations of the Hedge.

a1728 J. Woodward Select Cases Physick (1757) 207 Oils..defend them against the Acrimony and Predation of the biliose Salts.

1854 J. Caughey Helps to Life of Holiness & Usefulness v. 247 The man may have no other design than the accomplishment of his own favorite predations upon the church of Jesus Christ.

1875 Galaxy Jan. 77/2 Wars were fought, and tribal subjugation sometimes followed, but ambition in the prehistoric Indian appears to have been confined to disconnected predations.

1939 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 44 672 Christianity has..meant literally everything..persecution and toleration, humanitarianism and ruthless predation, freedom and slavery.

1970 Times 19 Dec. 7/3 You can then be sure that your gift will not be subject to predation when you are not there to defend it.

1999 J. Ferrell & N. Websdale Making Trouble iii. v. 92 The predatory acts of [the] murderer..made national headlines and did much to publicize the phenomenon of sexually violent predation in Washington State.

1870 Harper's Mag. Mar. 487/1 She is, after all, but a domesticated tiger. Her predations are secret, but very pernicious.

1897 Amer. Anthropologist 10 224 The short-sighted quails would probably remain to suffer decreased food-supply and increased predation.

1944 J. S. Huxley On Living in Revol. 61 The raids of the slave-making ants are not true war, but a curious combination of predation and parasitism.

1959 Listener 10 Dec. 1032/1 This predation of birds upon insects is of considerable practical importance.

1994 Ontario Out of Doors Sept. 86/2 Predation did not appear to determine populations of hare or grouse.

1958 Q. Jrnl. Econ. 72 399 It is misleading to pose the monopoly problem as the evils which may or do arise from the presence of a high degree of concentration of market supply, or from the collaboration or pricing or predation which may accompany it.

1977 Times 11 Feb. 17/3 New entrants to the shipping business are said to have little chance of surviving outside the conference network because of..the threat of predation (the practice of selling below cost to destroy competition).

2004 Antitrust Bull. (Nexis) 1 Apr. 29 The courts do not use this cost-based test to establish predatory pricing. Rather, below-cost prices create a presumption of predation.

1941 Q. Rev. Biol. 16 278/2 The predation pressure of the lynx population on the rabbit population may be a coaction of considerable value in shaping the course of the entire community.

1996 Restoration Ecol. 4 313 Fathead minnows may have also reduced predation pressure on young brook trout by older brook trout.