Definition of "starve"

starve

/stɑːv/

verb
third-person singular simple present starves, present participle starving, simple past starved, past participle starved or (obsolete) starven
1. (intransitive) To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
  Quotations
  During the Cultural Revolution I was exiled to Xincai County in Henan Province. There, 36 percent of the people starved to death in the early 1960s.
  1990, Chen Yizi (陳一諮), quotee, Children of the Dragon: The Story of Tiananmen Square‎, page 48
  "When all of you starve to death, Shasta, don't come crying to me, that's all."
  2007, Lisa Wingate, A Thousand Voices, page 76
2. (intransitive) To be very hungry.
3. (transitive) To destroy, make capitulate or at least make suffer by deprivation, notably of food.
4. (transitive) To deprive of nourishment or of some vital component.
5. (intransitive) To deteriorate for want of any essential thing.
6. (transitive, Britain, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire) To kill with cold; to (cause to) die from cold.
  Quotations
  Wheniver he wor starved, he used to get th' seck o' coils ov his back, an' walk raand th' haase till he gat warm agean.
  1869 February, John Hartley, The original illuminated clock almanack
  One i' th' morning an' me starv'd to th' death wi' waitin' up.
  1886, A Queer Supper, John Heywood, section 8
  Sometimes he remarks, “ ’Tis these dreadful frostis that spiles everything. ’Tis enough to sterve anybody.”
  1898, J. Arthur Gibbs, “When the May-Fly is Up”, in A Cotswold village; or, Country Life & Pursuits in Gloucestershire, London: John Murray, page 164
7. (intransitive, obsolete) To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.
  Quotations
  Seuen moneths he ſo her kept in bitter ſmart, / Becauſe his ſinfull luſt ſhe would not ſerue, / Vntill ſuch time as noble Britomart / Releaſed her, that elſe was like to ſterue / Through cruell knife that her deare heart did kerue.
  1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, stanza 4, page 6

Definition of "starve"

starve

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations