# starve

Pronunciation: US say "STAHRV" /stɑɹv/; UK say "STAHV" /stɑːv/

## Verb

1. To feel very hungry.
   - Simple: To feel extremely hungry.
   - _Whenever I skip lunch, I absolutely starve by the afternoon._
   - _The children were starving after a full day at the lake._
2. To die as a result of a lack of food or of not eating.
   - Simple: To die because you do not have enough food.
   - _Without aid, refugees in the besieged city could starve within weeks._
   - _Countless people starved during the prolonged drought._
3. To suffer severely as a result of a lack of food or of not eating.
   - Simple: To suffer badly because you do not have enough food.
   - _Families starve whenever the harvest fails two years running._
   - _The villagers were starving long before help finally arrived._
4. To cause, or seek to cause, someone's death by keeping food from them.
   - Simple: To kill someone, or try to, by not giving them food.
   - _The regime deliberately starved entire communities it deemed disloyal._
   - _He threatened to starve the captives unless they confessed._
5. To inflict severe hunger and suffering on a person or animal by withholding food.
   - Simple: To make someone suffer badly by not giving them food.
   - _Neglectful owners sometimes starve their animals nearly to death._
   - _The jailers starved him until he could barely stand._
6. To keep something from getting the nourishment or the vital element it needs.
   - Simple: To keep something from getting what it needs to work or live.
   - _The drought starved the river of the runoff it normally received._
   - _Engineers warned that the redesign would starve the engine of fuel._
7. To force enemy combatants to submit or surrender by cutting off their food supply, as in a targeted siege.
   - Simple: To force enemy fighters to give up by cutting off their food.
   - _The besieging army slowly starved the garrison into capitulation._
   - _Generals sometimes prefer to starve a defending force rather than attack._
8. To decline or waste away for lack of something essential.
   - Simple: To get worse because it lacks something it really needs.
   - _Without fresh ideas, even great companies starve and decline._
   - _The research effort starved for years under shrinking grants._
9. To cause a person or animal to die of cold or exposure. *(British)*
   - Simple: To make someone die or suffer from very cold weather.
   - _Close the window before you starve the bairns in here._
   - _That east wind would starve a body to death up on the tops._

## Verb

10. To compel a town or city to give in or surrender by cutting off its food supply, as in a siege during a war between states. *(dated)*
   - Simple: To force a whole town to give up by cutting off its food.
   - _The besieging army set out to starve the capital into submission._
   - _Occupiers starved entire towns to break civilian resistance._
11. To perish, especially, in later use, by slowly wasting away. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To die, or to slowly waste away.

## Origin

From Middle English sterven and Old English steorfan ("to die, perish"), tracing back to Proto-Germanic *sterbaną ("to become stiff, die"). Its deeper origin is uncertain: possibly from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to lose strength, become numb" or one meaning "to become stiff," or a blend of both. It is related to Dutch sterven and German sterben ("to die").

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