famish

English

Etymology

From Middle English famisshe, from famen (“starve”), from Old French afamer, ultimately from Latin famēs (“hunger”). Compare affamish, famine. Cognate with Spanish hambre (“hunger”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈfamɪʃ/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Verb

famish (third-person singular simple present famishes, present participle famishing, simple past and past participle famished)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section IV, member 1:
      Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, Epist. lib.1, epist.12, famish himself to death […]
  2. (transitive) To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry.
  3. (transitive) To kill, or to cause great suffering to, by depriving or denying anything necessary.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
  4. (transitive) To force, control, or constrain by famine.
  5. (intransitive) To die of hunger; to starve to death.
  6. (intransitive) To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
  7. (intransitive) To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.

Derived terms

Translations

References

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