STARVED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does starved mean? 

• STARVED (adjective)
  The adjective STARVED has 2 senses:

1. suffering from lack of food

2. extremely hungry

  Familiarity information: STARVED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STARVED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Suffering from lack of food

Synonyms:

starved; starving

Similar:

malnourished (not being provided with adequate nourishment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Extremely hungry

Synonyms:

esurient; famished; ravenous; sharp-set; starved

Context example:

fell into the esurient embrance of a predatory enemy

Similar:

hungry (feeling hunger; feeling a need or desire to eat food)

 Context examples 

Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Because the galaxy does not appear to be feeding on much smaller satellite galaxies, it is starved of infalling gas.

(Hubble Surveys Gigantic Galaxy, NASA)

He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Dear me! continued the anxious mother, what a sad fire we have got, and I dare say you are both starved with cold.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He must be starved, you know;—that is certain; absolutely starved.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I told my wife, “she had been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing.”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

If he hadn't starved himself, he wouldn't have been caught by La Grippe.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"I should like something to eat besides fruit," said the girl, "and I'm sure Toto is nearly starved. Let us stop at the next house and talk to the people."

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

When light and electric fields were blocked, starved worms burrowed down, while well-fed worms migrated up.

(Magnetic Field Sensor Unearthed in Worms, NIH)

I am lean, like a starved cat, and I am glad of my bed at night, and in the morning am I greatly weary.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)