malnourished
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of malnourished
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How does malnourished compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
When someone's malnourished, they don't get enough to eat. Beyond simply being hungry, someone who's malnourished doesn't get the nutrients they need to be healthy. Poor countries and those experiencing drought or war are the most likely to have a high percentage of malnourished citizens. If crops can't grow, or food can't be distributed to people who need it, the result is a malnourished population. A malnourished person suffers from malnutrition. Both words use the mal- prefix, meaning "badly," and the Latin root nutrire, "to feed."
Vocabulary lists containing malnourished
Among the Hidden
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Between Shades of Gray
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The War That Saved My Life
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"About 1.3 million children are moderately malnourished, 700,000 suffer from acute malnutrition and 900,000 mothers are moderately to severely malnourished," ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman told AFP.
From Barron's • Jan. 17, 2026
That’s when so much critical development takes place, and children who are malnourished can never make up the loss.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 24, 2025
The boy was fifteen, skinny, almost malnourished, so that the hip bones and coccyx stood out sharply.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 11, 2025
Vaughan was evacuated from Gaza last month, bidding goodbye to colleagues and patients who were so malnourished their bones jutted from their skin like tent poles.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 12, 2025
On the whole, she looked unkempt and malnourished, close to death.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
