starve
verbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//stɑːv//
- United States//stɑɹv//
To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
verb
- 1
To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
During the Cultural Revolution I was exiled to Xincai County in Henan Province. There, 36 percent of the people starved to death in the early 1960s.
"When all of you starve to death, Shasta, don't come crying to me, that's all."
- 2
To suffer severely because of lack of food or of not eating.
Ah (ſaid the Ape as ſighing vvondrous ſad) / Its an hard caſe, vvhen men of good deſeruing / Muſt either driuen be perforce to ſteruing, / Or asked for their pas by euerie ſquib: […]
..., and the little half-starved, stunted girl of twelve, with her brown arms and steady, unerring aim, will hammer out half a bundle, IS. 6½d.
- 3
To be very hungry.
I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.
- 4
To kill or attempt to kill by depriving of food.
- 5
To make suffer severely by depriving of food.
- 6
To force a combatant to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in a targeted siege.
If they refuse to surrender the garrison, we'll just starve them out.
- 7
datedTo force a population center to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in sieges in international armed conflicts.
Some historians have since classified the Siege of Leningrad as a genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.
- 8
To deprive of nourishment or of some vital component.
The uncaring parents starved the child of love.
The patient’s brain was starved of oxygen.
Mildly it [the wind] kiſt our ſailes, and, freſh, and ſvveet, / As, to a ſtomack ſterv'd, vvhoſe inſides meete, / Meate comes, it came; and ſvvole our ſailes, vvhen vvee / So joyd, as Sara' her ſvvelling joy'd to ſee.
Let them not ſtill be obſtinately blind, / Still to divert the Good thou haſt deſign'd, / Or vvith Malignant penury, / To ſterve the Royal Vertues of his Mind.
- 9
To deteriorate for want of any essential thing.
- 10
To kill with cold; to (cause to) die from cold.
I was half starved waiting out in that wind.
Wheniver he wor starved, he used to get th' seck o' coils ov his back, an' walk raand th' haase till he gat warm agean.
One i' th' morning an' me starv'd to th' death wi' waitin' up.
Sometimes he remarks, “ ’Tis these dreadful frostis that spiles everything. ’Tis enough to sterve anybody.”
- 11
obsoleteTo die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.
Seuen moneths he ſo her kept in bitter ſmart, / Becauſe his ſinfull luſt ſhe would not ſerue, / Vntill ſuch time as noble Britomart / Releaſed her, that elſe was like to ſterue / Through cruell knife that her deare heart did kerue.
Etymology
From Middle English sterven (“to die, perish”), from Old English steorfan (“to die, perish”), from Proto-West Germanic *sterban, from Proto-Germanic *sterbaną (“to become stiff, die”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terp- (“to lose strength, become numb, be motionless”); or from Proto-Indo-European *sterbʰ- (“to become stiff”), from *ster- (“stiff”); or a conflation of the aforementioned. Cognate with Scots stairve, sterve (“to die, perish, starve”), Saterland Frisian stjerwa (“to die”), West Frisian stjerre (“to die”), Dutch sterven (“to die”), German Low German starven (“to die”), German sterben (“to die”), Icelandic stirfinn (“peevish, froward”), Albanian shterp (“sterile, unproductive, barren land”).
Forms
- past tense
- starved
- past participle
- starved, starven
- present participle
- starving
- third person singular
- starves
starve · To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
starved · Approaching starvation, emaciated and malnourished.starving · starvationstash · A collection, sometimes hidden.