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The word doesn't exist in Cambridge Dictionary and OALD. However, 'ever' can be used as a prefix to mean 'always or continuously'.

Does 'ever-voracious' mean someone who is always eager (for something)?

The sentence I saw this word was:

'By that time, though, Glass had already signed with Virgin Records to record "Music in Twelve Parts," and the ever-voracious rock press had "discovered" minimal music.

The source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40213909.pdf

It's on Jstor but I accessed without subscription. That might also be because of the cookies in my browser. Please write a comment if you can't access it and I can scan and upload.

3 Answers 3

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"voracious" means "wanting and devouring great quantities of food". But metaphorically, when applied to "the rock press" it means "wanting and using great quantities of information about music and musicians",

Thus it means merely that the music press "always and continuously" wants more stories and information about music and musicians.

5

'Ever-voracious', as the hyphen indicates, is a compound expression made up of 'ever' (always, continually) and 'voracious' (very eager for something, especially a lot of food). The rock music press is always or continually very eager for news about of music.

5

You can combine "ever-" with just about any adjective to create a new word as needed, which this writer did. The word you make will be good English, and everyone will understand it. That word won't appear in dictionaries unless it has a meaning different from the normal meaning of "ever-" + adjective, like "evergreen", which means a type of tree, not "always green".

So if you find another word like this, and it's not in the dictionary, you can be confident that it means exactly what the two parts suggest.

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    evergreen trees are literally evergreen: they do not drop their leaves like deciduous trees do. The metaphorical meaning "always popular" is often more applicable though. The word will generally be understandable English, not necessarily good.
    – Chieron
    Commented Oct 2, 2022 at 12:14

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