starve
Americanverb (used without object)
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to die or perish from lack of food or nourishment.
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to be in the process of perishing or suffering severely from hunger.
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to suffer from extreme poverty and need.
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to feel a strong need or desire.
The child was starving for affection.
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Chiefly British Dialect. to perish or suffer extremely from cold.
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Obsolete. to die.
verb (used with object)
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to cause to starve; kill, weaken, or reduce by lack of food.
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to subdue, or force to some condition or action, by hunger.
to starve a besieged garrison into a surrender.
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to cause to suffer for lack of something needed or craved.
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Chiefly British Dialect. to cause to perish, or to suffer extremely, from cold.
verb
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to die or cause to die from lack of food
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to deprive (a person or animal) or (of a person, etc) to be deprived of food
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informal (intr) to be very hungry
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to deprive or be deprived (of something necessary), esp so as to cause suffering or malfunctioning
the engine was starved of fuel
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to bring (to) a specified condition by starving
to starve someone into submission
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archaic to be or cause to be extremely cold
Related Words
See hungry.
Other Word Forms
- half-starved adjective
- half-starving adjective
- self-starved adjective
- starver noun
- unstarved adjective
Etymology
Origin of starve
First recorded before 1000; Middle English sterven, Old English steorfan “to die”; cognate with German sterben
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.
Malnourished and starving whales are also producing fewer offspring.
From Los Angeles Times
People who have tried coming off the jabs describe it as "a switch that goes on and you're instantly starving".
From BBC
Anyone trapped with their head under the surface is likely going to be starved for oxygen, so the clock was ticking.
From Los Angeles Times
To compound matters for United fans starved of success, Ratcliffe is asking them to pay more to attend games.
From Barron's
And it was there, slipping off my shoes and dropping them into my dance bag, that the thought arrived in full, undeniable force: I’m starving.
From Salon
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.
