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malnourished

American  
[mal-nur-isht, -nuhr-] / mælˈnɜr ɪʃt, -ˈnʌr- /

adjective

  1. poorly or improperly nourished; suffering from malnutrition.

    thin, malnourished victims of the famine.
malnourished British  
/ mælˈnʌrɪʃt /

adjective

  1. undernourished

"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

Etymology

Origin of malnourished

First recorded in 1925–30; mal- + nourish + -ed 2

Compare meaning

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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.

"I became very malnourished and I got anaemia - Peter said I aged 20 years when I next saw him," she said.

From BBC • Feb. 13, 2026

Afghanistan's Taliban government said on Saturday its goal was "to help all malnourished children and mothers", after the United Nations warned that millions would experience acute malnutrition this year.

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

In January 1943, exhausted and malnourished, Vavilov was moved to a prison hospital.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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.