starve
Americanverb (used without object)
-
starves,
present (3rd person singular)
-
starved,
past participle, past
-
starving
present participle
-
to die or perish from lack of food or nourishment.
-
to be in the process of perishing or suffering severely from hunger.
-
to suffer from extreme poverty and need.
-
to feel a strong need or desire.
The child was starving for affection.
-
Chiefly British Dialect. to perish or suffer extremely from cold.
-
Obsolete. to die.
verb (used with object)
-
starves,
present (3rd person singular)
-
starved,
past participle, past
-
starving
present participle
-
to cause to starve; kill, weaken, or reduce by lack of food.
-
to subdue, or force to some condition or action, by hunger.
to starve a besieged garrison into a surrender.
-
to cause to suffer for lack of something needed or craved.
-
Chiefly British Dialect. to cause to perish, or to suffer extremely, from cold.
verb
-
to die or cause to die from lack of food
-
to deprive (a person or animal) or (of a person, etc) to be deprived of food
-
informal (intr) to be very hungry
-
to deprive or be deprived (of something necessary), esp so as to cause suffering or malfunctioning
the engine was starved of fuel
-
to bring (to) a specified condition by starving
to starve someone into submission
-
archaic to be or cause to be extremely cold
Synonym Usage
See hungry.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
starvernoun
-
half-starvedadjective
-
half-starvingadjective
-
self-starvedadjective
-
unstarvedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
starvesimple
-
starvessimple
-
have starvedperfect
-
has starvedperfect
-
am starvingprogressive
-
are starvingprogressive
-
is starvingprogressive
-
have been starvingperfect progressive
-
has been starvingperfect progressive
Past
-
starvedsimple
-
had starvedperfect
-
was starvingprogressive
-
were starvingprogressive
-
had been starvingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of starve
First recorded before 1000; Middle English sterven, Old English steorfan “to die”; cognate with German sterben
Explanation
The verb starve means suffering or death caused by a lack of food, though people also use it as a dramatic way to say they are hungry, as in, "If we don't start cooking dinner now, I think I'll starve." The word starve has origins in the Old English word steorfan, meaning “to die.” It is true that if you don't eat for a period of time, you could starve, meaning die from hunger. Today, starve is also used to describe less severe limitations on food, such as when you tell your friend, "I have to go to lunch now. I'm starving." This is a way of describing discomfort caused by hunger.
Vocabulary lists containing starve
"When Cultures Meet"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Excerpt from "A Raisin in the Sun"
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
Angela Adams said her pets were her "babies", adding: "I would rather starve than they starve."
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
Environmental advocates say it would starve the Delta of needed water and threaten fish that are already in severe decline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Joshua Kushner and his family, one imagines, will not starve.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026
However, not only do these chemicals affect the bees directly, they can also remove important plants that they rely on for food causing them to starve.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
You could get awfully hungry, but you wouldn’t starve.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
She starves herself for her cause, crosses oceans and tills land to create the utopia that she believes is possible.
From Salon ● Dec. 27, 2025
And as the government shutdown starves the markets of official data, any individual announcement from a company can take on more meaning.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 28, 2025
When society fails to honor difference, it starves itself of innovation, empathy and depth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2025
It isolates the cell from the surrounding tissue and essentially starves it of nutrients.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 28, 2024
“Nobody in Germany starves, and few, if any, go hungry,” he wrote.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
“In 2022 you had all these wind investments, and other power generators starved for capital,” while at that time Altius, under Dalton’s direction, “was buying up assets left and right.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
For years, the housing market has been starved for inventory with sellers opting to stay put in order to hold on to their low mortgage rates.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
"We never actually starved, but sometimes we never had quite enough to eat."
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
The push has made progress that few thought possible back in 2022, when Huawei was starved of U.S. technology and Chinese AI companies depended almost entirely on Nvidia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
I once saw a polar bear that had starved to death.
From "The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin
Once mortgage rates began to rise four years ago, owners with ultralow rates stayed put, starving the for-sale market of supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
“That’s starving the world of diesel,” York said, just as demand for the fuel is picking up.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
Simultaneously, his gamble on a self-owned Pac-12 Network failed to land a DirecTV deal, starving member schools of cash.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Last time a marine heatwave hit South Australia and Tasmania, there were starving penguins, fish kills, suffocating algae outbreaks, and jellyfish invasions.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
Exhibit one: their bamboo-only diet is too restrictive—limiting their habitat and potentially starving them with massive bamboo die-offs.
From "Camp Panda" by Catherine Thimmesh
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
