starve
Americanverb (used without object)
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starves,
present (3rd person singular)
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starved,
past participle, past
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starving
present participle
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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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starves,
present (3rd person singular)
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starved,
past participle, past
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starving
present participle
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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
Synonym Usage
See hungry.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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starvernoun
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half-starvedadjective
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half-starvingadjective
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self-starvedadjective
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unstarvedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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starvesimple
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starvessimple
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have starvedperfect
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has starvedperfect
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am starvingprogressive
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are starvingprogressive
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is starvingprogressive
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have been starvingperfect progressive
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has been starvingperfect progressive
Past
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starvedsimple
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had starvedperfect
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was starvingprogressive
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were starvingprogressive
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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"
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Excerpt from "A Raisin in the Sun"
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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.
See Examples For:
Environmental advocates contend it would starve the Delta and threaten fish already in severe decline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 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
He fears prey availability has not recovered enough to support tigers, who could starve.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
Campion’s suggestion was that they should simply starve the warren out.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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
This causes accelerated growth of algae and other plant life in a process called eutrophication which starves other organisms like fish of oxygen.
From BBC ● May 24, 2024
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
Has your group been starved for funding for some time, a sign executives are prioritizing other departments?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
Investors are starved for information in a new world of “terse” communication from the central bank.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Fragmented among hundreds of armed groups and starved of arms, the resistance has lost ground in recent months, but still controls large parts of the country.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
But the lack of braking points means the cars will be energy starved this year, so will be running with not much more than half the engines' full power at key points of the track.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
The poor bird had been picturing all the fights —almost certainly picturing them quite wrong: nourishing a starved heart on secondhand accounts in secret: wondering whose token was in the place of honour today.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
"It's causing huge environmental problems... we have more food in the world, but there are more than ever people who are malnourished and starving," he said.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
The preliminary report published last July had said that just seconds after take-off, fuel-control switches abruptly moved to the "cut-off" position, starving the engines of fuel and triggering total power loss.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
Environmentalists say the wall will accelerate erosion elsewhere while starving the neighboring salt marsh of sediment, hurting wildlife.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
That’s necessary magic in an age that’s starving for it.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
If Dicey was hungry, James must be starving.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
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.
