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Examples

  • In fact it is the fever itself which will die [OE steorfan ` die '> ModE starve ` go hungry; die from hunger'] or fail to develop from the cold if the sufferer from the cold keeps up his strength by eating well.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XX No 1 1991

  • The Bike, torn between its roles, kept breaking down and having to be pushed through the ruts, while I starved (OE steorfan, ` to die ') wi' cold.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XII No 3 1986

Comments

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  • "Deprivation rather than perpetual feasting was the norm, and much of the population was undernourished and dependent on food that could be foraged: the Old English word steorfan had not yet evolved into the word for 'starvation'; it simply meant 'to die'."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 30

    January 6, 2017