semistarvation
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of semistarvation
First recorded in 1850–55; semi- + starvation
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.
Before I could receive a permanent appointment I would have to take a physical examination and the weight requirement was one hundred and twenty-five pounds and I—with my long years of semistarvation—barely tipped the scales at a hundred and ten.
From Literature
Like Gauguin, he abruptly quits all that for Paris, semistarvation and oil painting.
From Time Magazine Archive
Whenever starvation supervenes, and the usual hospital liquid diet is really semistarvation, the bacteria normally present in the bowel increase enormously and produce large amounts of flatus.
From Time Magazine Archive
Longstanding, chronic diseases of important internal organs, leading to emaciation and weakness, or a prolonged semistarvation in winter may be sufficient cause.
From Project Gutenberg
"It was a hard but somewhat droll scrimmage with semistarvation," he says; for, after paying for his lodgings and clothes, he had only about seven cents a day with which to buy his food.
From Project Gutenberg
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.
