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Starve

//stɑːv// verb

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To die because of lack of food or of not eating. intransitive

    "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."

  2. 2
    die of food deprivation wordnet
  3. 3
    To suffer severely because of lack of food or of not eating. intransitive

    "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: […]"

  4. 4
    deprive of food wordnet
  5. 5
    To be very hungry. intransitive

    "I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks."

Show 11 more definitions
  1. 6
    deprive of a necessity and cause suffering wordnet
  2. 7
    To kill or attempt to kill by depriving of food. transitive
  3. 8
    be hungry; go without food wordnet
  4. 9
    To make suffer severely by depriving of food. transitive
  5. 10
    have a craving, appetite, or great desire for wordnet
  6. 11
    To force a combatant to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in a targeted siege. transitive

    "If they refuse to surrender the garrison, we'll just starve them out."

  7. 12
    To force a population center to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in sieges in international armed conflicts. dated, transitive

    "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. 13
    To deprive of nourishment or of some vital component. transitive

    "The uncaring parents starved the child of love."

  9. 14
    To deteriorate for want of any essential thing. intransitive
  10. 15
    To kill with cold; to (cause to) die from cold. British, transitive

    "I was half starved waiting out in that wind."

  11. 16
    To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away. intransitive, obsolete

    "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”).

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