Loading..

Loading...

American Dictionary of the English Language

Dictionary Search

Starve


STARVE, verb intransitive [G., to die, either by disease or hunger, or by a wound.]

1. To perish; to be destroyed. [In this general sense, obsolete.]

2. To perish or die with cold; as, to starve with cold. [This sense is retained in England, but not in the United States.

3. To perish with hunger. [This sense is retained in England and the United States.]

4. To suffer extreme hunger or want; to be very indigent.

Sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed.

STARVE, verb transitive

1. To kill with hunger. Maliciously to starve a man is, in law, murder.

2. To distress or subdue by famine; as, to starve a garrison into a surrender.

3. To destroy by want; as, to starve plants by the want of nutriment.

4. To kill with cold. [Not in use in the United States.]

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice their soft ethereal warmth--

5. To deprive of force or vigor.

The powers of their minds are starved by disuse. [Unusual.]