hungered

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of hunger.

   The exiled poet hungered for the sound of his native language.

   Reformers had long hungered for change before the new laws finally passed.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one spelling serves both the past (she hungered) and the perfect (she had hungered). In its figurative sense it usually takes for: hungered for news, for change, for home. An older transitive hunger, meaning to famish someone, belongs to archaic writing. The same spelling also does duty as the old adjective for "hungry", so read the construction to tell them apart.

2. 2
   adjectiveobsolete

   Hungry; lacking and in need of food.

   The hungered masses crowded the marketplace hoping for grain.

   [Our recruits] have much oftener an hungered and shabby appearance than a gaunty or reckless aspect. Many of them have no strong ties of affection or bright hopes in life.

   1865, Colburn's United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal (page 2)

   Note

   An adjective modern English has given up in favor of hungry. John Milton still uses it in Paradise Regain'd (1671), clipped to hunger'd, and Colburn's United Service Magazine of 1865 describes recruits with "an hungered and shabby appearance." It forms its comparative and superlative with more and most, never -er. In present-day prose it sounds deliberately old, so keep it for period voice or pastiche.

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