Starve
Pronunciation
- British IPA: /stÉ‘Ë(ɹ)v/
- Rhymes: -É‘Ë(r)v
Origin
From Middle English sterven, from Old English steorfan ("to die"), from Proto-Germanic *sterbanÄ… ("to become stiff, die"), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terp- ("to lose strength, become numb, be motionless"); or from Proto-Indo-European *sterbÊ°- ("to become stiff"), from Proto-Indo-European *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"), Low German staarven ("to die"), starven, German sterben ("to die"), Icelandic stirfinn ("peevish, froward"), Albanian shterp ("sterile, unproductive, barren land").
Full definition of starve
Verb
- (intransitive, obsolete) To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.i.4:noble Britomart
Released her, that else was like to sterue,
Through cruell knife that her deare heart did kerue. - (intransitive) To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
- 2007, Lisa Wingate, A Thousand Voices‎, "When all of you starve to death, Shasta, don't come crying to me, that's all."
- (intransitive) To be very hungry.Hey, ma, I'm starving!
- (transitive) To destroy, make capitulate or at least make suffer by deprivation, notably of food
- (transitive) To deprive of nourishment.They starved the child until it withered away.
- (transitive, British, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire) To kill with cold.I was half starved waiting out in that wind.