starve
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English sterven, from Old English steorfan (“to die”), 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 Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”); or a conflation of the aforementioned. Cognate with Scots sterve (“to die, perish”), 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”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
starve (third-person singular simple present starves, present participle starving, simple past starved or (obsolete) starf or (obsolete) storve, past participle starved or (obsolete) storven)
- (intransitive, obsolete) To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.i.4:
- noble Britomart / Released her, that else was like to starve, / Through cruell knife that her deare heart did kerue.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.i.4:
- (intransitive) To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
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2007, Lisa Wingate, A Thousand Voices, page 76:
- "When all of you starve to death, Shasta, don't come crying to me, that's all."
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- (intransitive) To be very hungry.
- Hey, ma, I'm starving!
- (transitive) To destroy, make capitulate or at least make suffer by deprivation, notably of food.
- (transitive) To deprive of nourishment.
- They starved the child until it withered away.
- (transitive, Britain, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire) To kill with cold.
- I was half starved waiting out in that wind.
Translations[edit]
to die because of lack of food
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to be very hungry
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to destroy by deprivation
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to deprive of nourishment
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Derived terms[edit]
Anagrams[edit]
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