hungry

American  

[huhng-gree] / ˈhʌŋ gri /

adjective

• hungrier,
  comparative
• hungriest
  superlative

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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Synonym Usage

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

Derived Forms

• hungriness
  noun
• hungrily
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Adjectives

• hungrier
  comparative
• hungriest
  superlative

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Etymology

Origin of hungry

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

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Explanation

Are you hungry? If your stomach is growling, you're probably hungry, which is how you’d describe that uncomfortable feeling in your gut when you go too long without eating food. Feeling hungry is a gnawing sensation that can be fixed by eating something. For some people, getting food isn’t so easy, and you’ll see poor folk on the street with a hungry look in their eyes. If your hunger has a particular food in mind, you could say that you are "hungry for” that food, like being hungry for macaroni right after seeing a commercial about macaroni.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hungry hungrier hungriest

You get there, you get hungry, you go again.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

She added that many mothers say they are skipping out on their own healthcare so that their kids can go to the doctor, or skipping meals so their kids don’t go hungry.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

They are hungry to exploit their edge in a market that has been swarmed by recreational traders betting on sports and elections—while it lasts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026

After years of food designed to work everywhere for everyone, diners may simply be hungry again for evidence that somebody meant it.

From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2026

Jeremy spent most of the walk back to his house thinking alternately about his conversation with Miss Priest and about how incredibly hungry he was.

From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville

Despite their roster of stars and their unprecedented payroll, they stood no chance against the younger, hungrier and more tenacious Brewers, who overwhelmed their wealthier opponent with a relentless energy the Dodgers couldn’t match.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

This means we all respond differently to exercise in terms of how many calories we burn or whether a workout makes us feel hungrier later in the day.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

Not only do sugar spikes contribute to the long-term development of metabolic disease, it can also leave you hungrier by midmorning than if you had eaten nothing at all.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 21, 2026

"As China steps onto the global stage, it is hungrier for talent than ever before," the article adds.

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2025

The harder we work, the thinner and hungrier we become.

From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung

“All of us, from the wealthiest and most powerful of men to the weakest and hungriest of children, share one precious possession: the name American.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026

“I’ve said it a couple times this spring so far, but I think this is the hungriest team I’ve ever had in spring training,” Servais said.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 20, 2024

If we know we are no longer sending our best players out against the world, can we at least go back to sending our hungriest?

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2023

“The only list you’ll find me on is the hungriest customer list,” Kelce responded.

From New York Times ● Mar. 5, 2023

Their flesh was firm and sweet and would fill even the hungriest stomach.

From "The Girl Who Married a Lion: and Other Tales from Africa" by Alexander Mccall Smith

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Related Words

• eager
• greedy
• keen
• ravenous
• starved

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