# hungry

Pronunciation: say "HUNG-gree" /ˈhʌŋ.ɡɹi/

## Adjective

1. Feeling the physical need for food that comes from not having eaten enough.
   - Simple: Needing food because your stomach is empty.
   - _She was too hungry to concentrate on the lecture._
   - _Stray dogs grow hungry and bold when food is scarce._
2. Having a strong desire or appetite for something; eager.
   - Simple: Wanting something very much, such as success or attention.
   - _Investors are hungry for any sign that the market will recover._
   - _He remained hungry for knowledge well into old age._
3. Producing hunger; tending to make a person feel the need for food.
   - Simple: Causing someone to feel the need for food.
   - _Threshing grain was hungry work that left the laborers ravenous by dusk._
   - _Sea air makes for a hungry afternoon, and the picnic vanished quickly._
4. Of soil or land, poor and infertile; barren and unable to nourish growth.
   - Simple: Poor and thin, so plants struggle to grow there.
   - _Generations had fought to coax crops from the hungry clay._
   - _The hungry moorland supported little beyond heather and gorse._

## Origin

From Middle English hungry, from Old English hungriġ, going back through Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic words for "hungry"; it is essentially hunger plus -y. It is related to Dutch hongerig, German hungrig, and Swedish hungrig.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/hungry (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).