hungry

American  

[huhng-gree] / ˈhʌŋ gri /

adjective

hungrier, hungriest

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

   Synonyms:

   ravenous

   Antonyms:

   satiated

2. indicating, characteristic of, or characterized by hunger.

   He approached the table with a hungry look.

3. strongly or eagerly desirous.

4. lacking needful or desirable elements; not fertile; poor.

   hungry land.

5. marked by a scarcity of food.

   The depression years were hungry times.

6. Informal. aggressively ambitious or competitive, as from a need to overcome poverty or past defeats.

   a hungry investment firm looking for wealthy clients.

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hungry British  

/ ˈhʌŋɡrɪ /

adjective

1. desiring food

2. experiencing pain, weakness, or nausea through lack of food

3. having a craving, desire, or need (for)

4. expressing or appearing to express greed, craving, or desire

5. lacking fertility; poor

6. informal

   1. greedy; grasping

   2. stingy; mean

7. (of timber) dry and bare

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Related Words

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 Word Forms

• hungrily adverb
• hungriness noun

Etymology

Origin of hungry

First recorded before 950; Middle English, Old English hungrig. See hunger, -y ¹

Example Sentences

Artificial intelligence is power hungry, and companies that help feed it will be the winners of the new AI cycle.

From Barron's

The goal is to come out feeling steadier, more confident and maybe even a little smug—not beleaguered and hungry.

From Salon

The hungry whales now come into crowded estuaries like San Francisco Bay to feed, making them vulnerable to ship traffic.

From Los Angeles Times

Free fruit stalls and cookery lessons are being funded by a Leeds charity set up to help stop school pupils going hungry.

From BBC

Economic hardship was a trigger for the unprecedented anti-government demonstrations of July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting "We are hungry" and "Freedom!"

From Barron's

Related Words

• eager
• greedy
• keen
• ravenous
• starved