starvation
Americannoun
adjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of starvation
Explanation
Starvation is what happens if you don’t eat for days or weeks and your body starts to shut down. Extreme poverty, drought and other dire circumstances can contribute to starvation. Starvation can be the result of war or famine, leading to the deaths of large numbers of people. Any organism that depends on food for energy is at risk of starvation when there isn't enough to eat. Starvation is thought by some to have entered the language in 1775 during the American Revolution, when a member of the British Parliament suggested starvation as a way to make the American rebels submit.
Vocabulary lists containing starvation
Africa - Middle School
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Africa - High School
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Part 2 Vocabulary (Unit 1)
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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.
In turn, Germany was pushed to the edge of starvation, despite its relative food self-sufficiency, because Britain’s counter-blockade worsened the domestic fact that horses and farmers were sent from grainfields to the battlefields.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026
Unions and workers complain of "starvation wages" which have been frozen since 2022.
From Barron's • Apr. 9, 2026
Shipper survived two concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, a death march, and the Lodz ghetto - a Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis which was plagued by disease, starvation and forced labour.
From BBC • Jan. 27, 2026
Between 1846 and 1851, more than a million Irish people died from starvation or disease.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 24, 2026
Manioc was common throughout Congo, and its starchy root kept millions from starvation.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
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.
