[syn: famished, ravenous, sharp-set, starved, esurient]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Starve \Starve\ (st[aum]rv), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Starved
(st[aum]rvd); p. pr. & vb. n. Starving.] [OE. sterven to
die, AS. steorfan; akin to D. sterven, G. sterben, OHG.
sterban, Icel. starf labor, toil.]
1. To die; to perish. [Obs., except in the sense of perishing
with cold or hunger.] --Lydgate.
[1913 Webster]
In hot coals he hath himself raked . . .
Thus starved this worthy mighty Hercules. --Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
2. To perish with hunger; to suffer extreme hunger or want;
to be very indigent.
[1913 Webster]
Sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed. --Pope.
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3. To perish or die with cold. --Spenser.
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Have I seen the naked starve for cold? --Sandys.
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Starving with cold as well as hunger. --W. Irving.
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Note: In this sense, still common in England, but rarely used
in the United States.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
starved
adj 1: suffering from lack of food [syn: starved, starving]
2: extremely hungry; "they were tired and famished for food and
sleep"; "a ravenous boy"; "the family was starved and
ragged"; "fell into the esurient embrance of a predatory
enemy" [syn: famished, ravenous, sharp-set, starved,
esurient]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
69 Moby Thesaurus words for "starved":
aching for, attenuated, bare-handed, beggarly, cadaverous,
corpselike, craving, deprived of, desirous of, dog-hungry,
dying for, emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, empty, empty-handed,
famished, famishing, fasting, haggard, half-famished, half-starved,
hollow-eyed, hungering, hungry, ill off, ill-equipped,
ill-furnished, ill-provided, impoverished, jejune, lacking,
marantic, marasmic, on short commons, pauperized, peaked, peaky,
peckish, pinched, pinched with hunger, poor, puny, ravening,
ravenous, sharp-set, shorthanded, shriveled, skeletal, starveling,
starving, tabetic, tabid, underfed, undermanned, undernourished,
unfed, unfilled, unprovided, unreplenished, unsupplied, voracious,
wasted, weakened, weazeny, withered, wizened, wolfish,
wraithlike