hungry

[ huhng-gree ]

/ ˈhʌŋ gri /

Save This Word!

See synonyms for: hungry / hungrily / hungriness on Thesaurus.com

adjective, hun·gri·er, hun·gri·est.

having a desire, craving, or need for food; feeling hunger.

indicating, characteristic of, or characterized by hunger: He approached the table with a hungry look.

strongly or eagerly desirous.

lacking needful or desirable elements; not fertile; poor: hungry land.

marked by a scarcity of food: The depression years were hungry times.

Informal. aggressively ambitious or competitive, as from a need to overcome poverty or past defeats: a hungry investment firm looking for wealthy clients.

OTHER WORDS FOR hungry

1 ravenous, famishing, starving.

See synonyms for hungry on Thesaurus.com

OPPOSITES FOR hungry

1 sated, satiated, surfeited.

See antonyms for hungry on Thesaurus.com

QUIZ

CAN YOU ANSWER THESE COMMON GRAMMAR DEBATES?

There are grammar debates that never die; and the ones highlighted in the questions in this quiz are sure to rile everyone up once again. Do you know how to answer the questions that cause some of the greatest grammar debates?

Question 1 of 7

Which sentence is correct?

His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

Origin of hungry

First recorded before 950; Middle English, Old English hungrig. See hunger, -y¹

synonym study for hungry

1. Hungry, famished, starved describe a condition resulting from a lack of food. Hungry is a general word, expressing various degrees of eagerness or craving for food: hungry between meals; desperately hungry after a long fast; hungry as a bear. Famished denotes the condition of one reduced to actual suffering from want of food, but sometimes is used lightly or in an exaggerated statement: famished after being lost in a wilderness; simply famished ( hungry ). Starved denotes a condition resulting from long-continued lack or insufficiency of food, and implies enfeeblement, emaciation, or death (originally death from any cause, but now death from lack of food): He looks thin and starved. By the end of the terrible winter, thousands had starved ( to death ). It is also used as a humorous exaggeration: I only had two sandwiches, pie, and some milk, so I'm simply starved ( hungry ).

OTHER WORDS FROM hungry

hun·gri·ly, adverbhun·gri·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use hungry in a sentence

After nine hours hosing down machinery at a food processing plant, Garcia is tired and hungry.
Inside the Lives of Immigrant Teens Working Dangerous Night Shifts in Suburban Factories|by Melissa Sanchez|November 19, 2020|ProPublica
I suspect, however, if the company does market this it will see significant demand from local business owners who are hungry for help and information.
Google’s new Small Business Advisors program aims to help SMBs grow|Greg Sterling|November 17, 2020|Search Engine Land
My mother never had to tell us to eat our food because there were hungry kids in Africa or China.
‘What we’ve seen since covid has been a precipitous increase in need,’ says Feeding America CEO|KK Ottesen|November 10, 2020|Washington Post
Solid is intended to “evolve the web in order to restore balance,” Berners-Lee said in 2018, when he unveiled the project as a reaction against the takeover of online life by data-hungry Big Tech firms.
Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid data-privacy project enters the real world|David Meyer|November 9, 2020|Fortune

There are plenty of other hungry creatures in this world, not just your spouse and the kids.
How to stock your pantry to endure a long, uncertain winter|By Tim MacWelch/Outdoor Life|November 9, 2020|Popular-Science
I hungrily devoured this wild conspiratorial narrative, eager to be a young Jedi in the rebellion against the evolutionary Empire.
I’m a Christian, and Ken Ham Doesn’t Speak for Me|Brad Kramer|February 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Kansas 3rd Congressional District Another Blue Dog retirement has the GOP circling hungrily.
Who Will Fall Next?|Samuel P. Jacobs|January 20, 2010|DAILY BEAST
The most photographed, hungrily consumed woman in a society says as much about us as about her.
Amis vs. "Two Bags of Silicone"|Olivia Cole|November 8, 2009|DAILY BEAST
No one eats their young (or themselves) more hungrily than journalists.
The Quake at Condé Nast|Tina Brown|April 27, 2009|DAILY BEAST
Tom easily found the mightier scale his aching heart so hungrily desired.
The Wave|Algernon Blackwood
"I think stew is much better the second day," observed Benny, eating hungrily.
The Box-Car Children|Gertrude Chandler Warner
One of the horses was hobbled, and they were all eating hungrily the grass that grew along the gully's sides.
Cabin Fever|B. M. Bower
He eagerly welcomed these memories, and hungrily held them close.
Two Little Travellers|Frances Browne Arthur
The supper was good, and for many weeks Sylvia had not eaten so hungrily.
The Opened Shutters|Clara Louise Burnham

British Dictionary definitions for hungry

hungry

/ (ˈhʌŋɡrɪ) /

adjective -grier or -griest

desiring food

experiencing pain, weakness, or nausea through lack of food

(postpositive foll by for) having a craving, desire, or need (for)

expressing or appearing to express greed, craving, or desire

lacking fertility; poor

Australian and NZ informal

greedy; grasping
stingy; mean

NZ (of timber) dry and bare

Derived forms of hungry

hungrily or hungeringly, adverbhungriness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

hungry

OTHER WORDS FOR hungry

OPPOSITES FOR hungry

Origin of hungry

synonym study for hungry

OTHER WORDS FROM hungry

Words related to hungry

How to use hungry in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for hungry

Derived forms of hungry