thirst

Pluralthirsts

Formsthirsts, thirsting, thirsted

1. 1
   urge to drinknouncountable or uncountable

   A dry feeling in the throat together with a craving for drink, caused by lack of liquid or by something else, such as fear or excitement, that dries the throat.

   Nothing quenches a summer thirst like a glass of cold lemonade.

   Waiting backstage, the singer felt a dry, nervous thirst that no amount of water seemed to ease.

   Note

   The word goes back through Old English þurst to an ancient root meaning "dry", the very feeling it names. A thirst is often something you build: people develop or work up a thirst through effort, as on a long hike, and in casual speech someone who has a thirst on is ready for a drink. Counted, it takes adjectives freely: a great thirst, a summer thirst.

2. 2
   nounfigurativelyusually singular

   A strong, eager desire for something.

   Years of war had left the country with a deep thirst for peace.

   The team's thirst for revenge was obvious from the opening whistle.

   Similarhunger, craving, desire, longing, yearning

   Note

   The figurative thirst names its object with for: a thirst for news, for peace, for revenge. It borrows the urgency of a dry throat, so it suits a desire that nags and keeps coming back, and it readily takes an intensifying adjective, as in a real thirst or a deep thirst.

3. 3
   lack of waternoununcountable

   The bodily state of needing water that produces the feeling of thirst.

   The shipwrecked sailors suffered terribly from thirst until the rain came.

   Across the drought-stricken plains, cattle were dying of thirst.

   Similardehydration

   Note

   When thirst is a danger rather than a feeling, this is the sense at work: people and animals suffer from thirst or die of it, and in the desert the thirst can drive you mad. Where the dry throat can be eased with a glass of water, this is the need behind it, the stuff of survival stories such as Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Land That Time Forgot (1918).

4. 4
   sexual desirenounfigurativelyusually singular

   Sexual desire; lust.

   Twenty years into their marriage, her thirst for him had not faded.

   The novel is full of forbidden thirsts and secret meetings in hotel rooms.

   Similarlust, desire, passion, longing

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To be thirsty; to need something to drink.

   Out on the salt flats, the horses thirsted and grew weak.

   Patients recovering from surgery often thirst but are allowed only small sips at first.

6. 6
   long forverbintransitive

   To have an intense desire for something.

   After years of censorship, the public thirsted for honest reporting.

   Young players who thirst for a place on the team train harder than anyone.

   Similarlong, yearn, crave, hunger, hanker

   Note

   Like the noun's craving, the verb usually names its object with for, but an older pattern with after survives in the King James Bible of 1611: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." The same Bible's "My soul thirsteth for … the living God" shows how naturally the word moved from water to spiritual longing, and that devotional ring can still cling to it.

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