starveling

[ stahrv-ling ]

noun
  1. a person, animal, or plant that is starving.

adjective
  1. starving; suffering from lack of nourishment.

  2. pining with want.

  1. poor in condition or quality.

  2. such as to entail or suggest starvation.

Origin of starveling

1
First recorded in 1540–50; starve + -ling1

Words Nearby starveling

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use starveling in a sentence

  • They lay flat and deflated, but laid out in one assembly beside a starveling twisted bush.

    The Invaders | William Fitzgerald Jenkins
  • Only the arts which in a pecuniary sense pay, will thrive, and the rest will live a starveling life.

    Paris: With Pen and Pencil | David W. Bartlett
  • There is no virtue in a starveling piety which turns all beauty into ugliness and shrivels up every natural affection.

    Flowers of Freethought | George W. Foote
  • He will have poor turnips and starveling wheat, and kill his fields with undue apportionments of guano and bonedust.

    Around The Tea-Table | T. De Witt Talmage
  • Jim was wandering back to the road, deflected now and then by some starveling plant.

    Country Neighbors | Alice Brown

British Dictionary definitions for starveling

starveling

/ (ˈstɑːvlɪŋ) archaic /


noun
    • a starving or poorly fed person, animal, etc

    • (as modifier): a starveling child

adjective
  1. insufficient; meagre; scant

Origin of starveling

1
C16: from starve + -ling 1

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012