undernourished

Undernourished is an adjective that means not provided with enough food or nutrients to grow and develop in a healthy way.

It comes from the past tense of the verb undernourish, meaning to fail to provide (or intentionally withhold) enough food or nutrients.

The verb nourish means to promote healthy growth—to provide enough of what’s needed for someone or something to be healthy and to grow and develop. Nourish is most commonly used in relation to food, but can be used in figurative ways that don’t involve food: education nourishes our minds; a vacation can nourish our spirit.

Undernourish and undernourished can also be used in these figurative ways, but both are usually used in the context of nutrition, especially in relation to children who are not provided with enough nourishing food. The adjective malnourished is similar but is often used in more extreme cases involving malnutrition.

It’s also possible to use undernourished in the context of other living things that require nutrients, such as plants.

Example: If we fail to provide healthy lunches that are available to all children, we will end up with a lot of undernourished students.

The first records of the adjective undernourished come from the early 1900s. The word nourish comes from the Latin verb nūtrīre, meaning “to feed” or “to care for.” The words nurture, nutrition, nutritious, and nurse are based on the same root. In undernourish, the prefix under- indicates insufficiency. It’s used the same way in the synonym underfed.

Describing someone as undernourished most commonly means that they have not been provided with enough nutrients. Describing someone as malnourished can mean this, but it can also mean their diet is unhealthy overall, perhaps due to having too much unhealthy food or to having a digestive disorder. Still, the words are often used in overlapping ways.

What are some other forms related to undernourished?

• undernourish (verb)
• undernourishment (noun)
• nourish (verb)

What are some synonyms for undernourished?

• underfed

What are some words that share a root or word element with undernourished? 

• malnourished
• malnourishment
• overnourish
• nourishment
• nourishing
• nurture
• nutrition
• nutritious
• nurse

What are some words that often get used in discussing undernourished?

• food
• feed
• nutrient
• malnutrition
• healthy
• grow
• develop
• children
• severely

Undernourished is most commonly used in contexts involving people who do not have access to enough healthy food.

Nearly 690 million people – or 8.9% of the 🌍 world’s population – are undernourished, warns @FAOstatistics. Read about how trade policy can help achieve #ZeroHunger, an article by @Hepburn_JC & @georgiosmermig1 on @IISD_SDGs https://t.co/S0GFd97Vyd

— UNDP SDG Integration (@SDGintegration) November 9, 2020

"Leaders of both parties need to recognize the strong connection between poor dietary patterns and the nation’s worsening health — a function of the majority of Americans being both overfed with unhealthy foods and undernourished with healthier ones." https://t.co/DCnCffzgoe

— STAT (@statnews) November 7, 2020

Africa's warming climate is impacting agriculture, and the number of undernourished people has increased, according to a new report https://t.co/AzSpQkgc9D

— Bloomberg Green (@climate) November 6, 2020

Is undernourished used correctly in the following sentence?

Cutting calories just to chase some unattainable beauty goal will leave you undernourished and unhealthy.