starve

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   die of food deprivation

   The political prisoners starved to death

2. 2
   verb

   deprive of food

   They starved the prisoners

3. 3
   verb

   To die because of lack of food or of not eating.

   During the Cultural Revolution I was exiled to Xincai County in Henan Province. There, 36 percent of the people starved to death in the early 1960s.

4. 4
   verb

   To suffer severely because of lack of food or of not eating.

   Ah (ſaid the Ape as ſighing vvondrous ſad) / Its an hard caſe, vvhen men of good deſeruing / Muſt either driuen be perforce to ſteruing, / Or asked for their pas by euerie ſquib: […]

5. 5
   verb

   To be very hungry.

   I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.

6. 6
   verb

   To force a combatant to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in a targeted siege.

   If they refuse to surrender the garrison, we'll just starve them out.

7. 7
   verb

   To force a population center to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in sieges in international armed conflicts.

   Some historians have since classified the Siege of Leningrad as a genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.

8. 8
   verb

   To deprive of nourishment or of some vital component.

   The uncaring parents starved the child of love.

Etymology

From Middle English sterven (“to die, perish”), from Old English steorfan (“to die, perish”), from Proto-West Germanic *sterban, from Proto-Germanic *sterbaną (“to become stiff, die”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terp- (“to lose strength, become numb, be motionless”); or from Proto-Indo-European *sterbʰ- (“to become stiff”), from *ster- (“stiff”); or a conflation of the aforementioned. Cognate with Scots stairve, sterve (“to die, perish, starve”), Saterland Frisian stjerwa (“to die”), West Frisian stjerre (“to die”), Dutch sterven (“to die”), German Low German starven (“to die”), German sterb…