What does cannibalize mean?
Cannibalize is a verb with two main uses that share a single metaphorical root. In its original technical sense, to cannibalize something — usually a machine, vehicle, or piece of equipment — means to strip it of working parts so those parts can be used to repair or rebuild another item. A grounded aircraft might be cannibalized to keep its fleetmates flying, for instance. The word has since taken on a prominent figurative meaning in business: when a new product reduces the sales of an existing product made by the same company, it is said to cannibalize them, as when a budget model eats into demand for a premium one. Both senses carry a vivid image of consuming one thing to sustain another, and both are widely understood across British and American English. The British spelling is cannibalise. The term is especially common in engineering, military logistics, marketing strategy, and technology reporting.
To take usable parts from one machine or item of equipment in order to repair or construct another.
"The workshop cannibalized a broken-down printer to fix the office copier."
(Of a new product) To reduce the sales or market share of an existing product offered by the same company.
"Analysts noted that the tablet was cannibalizing laptop sales."
This figurative business sense developed later than the mechanical sense and dominates modern commercial writing.
Cannibalize literally borrows its meaning from man-eating: when engineers strip one machine to feed another, they're 'eating' their own equipment — and when companies do it to their own product lines, the metaphor becomes painfully literal.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cannibalize
Cannibalize derives from 'cannibal', which itself traces back through Spanish 'Caníbal' and French to 'Carib', the name of the Indigenous people of the Caribbean — a name associated by early European colonists with ritual man-eating. The verb emerged much later, first attested in English around the mid-twentieth century, when military mechanics began using 'cannibal' as shorthand for a donor vehicle stripped for spares. From there the sense broadened metaphorically into business usage, where products 'eat' each other's markets.
Related word forms
How cannibalize is actually used
Commonly used in engineering, aviation, automotive repair, and military contexts for the literal sense. In business and marketing writing, it carries a slightly negative connotation, implying self-defeating competition within a firm's own portfolio. British spelling is 'cannibalise'.
Easily confused with cannibalize
'Cannibal' refers to an organism that eats members of its own species, while 'cannibalize' is the verb describing stripping one thing for reusable parts or undermining one's own sales.