Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food.
- intransitive verb Informal To be hungry.
- intransitive verb To suffer from deprivation.
- intransitive verb Archaic To suffer or die from cold.
- intransitive verb To cause to starve.
- intransitive verb To force to a specified state by starving.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To die; perish.
- Specifically To perish from lack of food or nourishment; die of hunger; also, to suffer from lack of food; pine with hunger; famish; suffer extreme poverty.
- To perish with cold; die from cold or exposure; suffer from cold.
- To suffer for lack of anything that is needed or much desired; suffer mental or spiritual want; pine.
- To cause to perish with hunger; afflict or distress with hunger; famish; hence, to kill, subdue, or bring to terms by withholding food or by the cutting off of supplies: as, to
starve a garrison into surrender. - To cause to perish with cold; distress or affect severely with cold; benumb utterly; chill.
- To cause to perish through lack of any kind; deprive of life, vigor, or force through want; exhaust; stunt.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb engraving To destroy with cold.
- transitive verb To kill with hunger.
- transitive verb To distress or subdue by famine.
- transitive verb To destroy by want of any kind.
- transitive verb To deprive of force or vigor; to disable.
- intransitive verb Obs., except in the sense of perishing with cold or hunger. To die; to perish.
- intransitive verb To perish with hunger; to suffer extreme hunger or want; to be very indigent.
- intransitive verb To perish or die with cold.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive, obsolete To
die ; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away. - verb intransitive To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
- verb intransitive To be very
hungry . - verb transitive To
destroy , makecapitulate or at least make suffer bydeprivation , notably of food - verb transitive To
deprive of nourishment. - verb transitive, UK, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire To
kill withcold .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb have a craving, appetite, or great desire for
- verb be hungry; go without food
- verb die of food deprivation
- verb deprive of food
- verb deprive of a necessity and cause suffering
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Regime change against dictators who let their people starve is now considered to be unacceptable.
Africa 2009
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Seeing children starve is terrible, I guess we all saw those images f the starving kids in Africa.
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Seeing children starve is terrible, I guess we all saw those images of the starving kids in Africa.
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Today's "debt crisis" is the culmination of the long-term "starve the beast" strategy from an organized corporate-conservative movement.
Dave Johnson: What Is the Real Agenda of the Budget-Cutters? Dave Johnson 2011
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Today's "debt crisis" is the culmination of the long-term "starve the beast" strategy from an organized corporate-conservative movement.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Dave Johnson 2011
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If you want to see your people starve, that is your own business.
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What, have you no compunctions at that word starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections?
The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper Martin Farquhar Tupper 1849
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The change is from emphasizing balanced budgets - or at least lower deficits - to what tax-cutting conservatives have called "starve the beast," that is, cut taxes and force government to shrink.
NYT > Home Page By JACKIE CALMES 2011
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The change is from emphasizing balanced budgets - or at least lower deficits - to what tax-cutting conservatives have called "starve the beast," that is, cut taxes and force government to shrink.
NYT > Home Page By JACKIE CALMES 2011
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And the next time you run out of dog food and couldn't possibly be moved to drive to the market or "starve" your dog?
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