starve

Meaning

1. To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
2. To be very hungry.
3. To kill or attempt to kill by depriving of food.
4. To destroy, make capitulate or at least make suffer by deprivation, notably of food.
5. To deprive of nourishment or of some vital component.
6. To deteriorate for want of any essential thing.
7. To kill with cold; to (cause to) die from cold.
8. (obsolete) To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.

Concepts

starve

famish

hungry

hunger

go hungry

die of hunger

fast

be hungry

diet

starving

thirst

be famished

be starving

crave

yearn

detect

abstract

bare

clear

deprive

discover

expose

nick

peel

purloin

shell

skin

steal

strip

uncover

abstain

reduce

underfeed

lust

become hungry

languish

deprive of

suffer privation

go on a hunger strike

go without food

waste away

wither

be short of food

tighten

lose weight

undernourished

clem

be cold

pinch

suffer want

dehydrate

desiccate

dry

dry out

dry up

exsiccate

run dry

exhaust

kill

deprive … of

despoil

batten

famished

pine away

to

half-starved

long for

thirst for

desire

want

wish

Pronounced as (IPA)

/stɑːv/

Etymology

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 *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”).