starve Meaning, Definition & Usage

verb be hungry; go without food
famish; hunger.
- Let's eat--I'm starving!
verb die of food deprivation
famish.
- The political prisoners starved to death
- Many famished in the countryside during the drought
verb deprive of food
famish.
- They starved the prisoners
verb have a craving, appetite, or great desire for
lust; crave; thirst; hunger.
verb deprive of a necessity and cause suffering
- he is starving her of love
- The engine was starved of fuel

OE. sterven to die, AS. steorfan; akin to D. sterven, G. sterben, OHG. sterban, Icel. starf labor, toil.

imperfect & past participle Starved ; present participle & verbal noun Starving

To die; to perish. Obs., except in the sense of perishing with cold or hunger. Lydgate.
In hot coals he hath himself raked . . . Thus starved this worthy mighty Hercules. Chaucer.
To perish with hunger; to suffer extreme hunger or want; to be very indigent.
Sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed. Pope.
To perish or die with cold. Spenser.
Have I seen the naked starve for cold? Sandys.

Starving with cold as well as hunger. W. Irving.
✍ In this sense, still common in England, but rarely used of the United States.

To destroy with cold. Eng.
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth. Milton.
To kill with hunger; as, maliciously to starve a man is, in law, murder.
To distress or subdue by famine; as, to starvea garrison into a surrender.
Attalus endeavored to starve Italy by stopping their convoy of provisions from Africa. Arbuthnot.
To destroy by want of any kind; as, to starve plans by depriving them of proper light and air.
To deprive of force or vigor; to disable.
The pens of historians, writing thereof, seemed starved for matter in an age so fruitful of memorable actions. Fuller.

The powers of their minds are starved by disuse. Locke.