esurient
Syllables: esu·ri·ent/ɪˈsjʊə.ɹɪ.ənt/US/ɪˈsʊ.ɹi.ənt/
esurient adjective: very greedy or hungry; ravenous; (figuratively) avid, eager.
Adjective
esurient (comparative more esurient, superlative most esurient)
- Very greedy or hungry; ravenous; (figuratively) avid, eager.
- So that (as I apprehend) theſe Famelick, Eſurient, and Sitient Spirits are not the Ferments product of Concoction in the Ventricle, but only incentives, ordained by nature to render us deſirous of Aliment, to repair the decaying frame of our Body.1685, Samuel Collins, “Of the Serous Ferment of the Stomach”, in A Systeme Of Anatomy, Treating of the Body of Man, Beasts, Birds, Fish, Insects, and Plants. […], volumes I (Containing the Parts of...
- Calcin'd Hartſhorn being a mere Terra damnata, wholly bereav'd of all Salts, muſt needs, as it boils in Water, imbibe the Salt of that Water, and leave its Pores empty and eſurient: And then that eſurient Water taken into our Viſcera and Veſſels, will greedily ſuck into it whatſoever Salts it...1719, Thomas Fuller, Pharmacopœia Extemporanea: Or, A Body of Medicines, […], 3rd edition, London: Printed for W. and J. Innys, […], →OCLC, page 158
- Synonyms:
- cormorant, edacious, gluttonous, gutfoundered, hungry as a hog, insatiable, lupine, pantagruelian, rapacious, ravening
Noun
esurient (plural esurients)
- One who is greedy or hungry.
- Sure it is that he [Philip Nye] was a moſt dangerous and ſeditious Perſon, a politick Pulpit driver of Independency, an inſatiable eſurient after riches, and what not to raiſe a family and to heap up wealth.1691, [Anthony Wood], “PHILIPP NYE”, in Athenæ Oxonienses. An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops who have had Their Education in the Most Ancient and Famous University of Oxford from the...
- [S]ome noble sportsmen have, I hear, with a view to improve their [i.e., young foxes'] physique and to initiate them early into training, supplied the young esurients and their mammas and papas with Spratt's dog biscuits, by a due course of which food it may be supposed, theoretically, they would...1878, M[aurice] O’Connor Morris, chapter II, in Hibernia Venatica, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 9
Examples of esurient in a sentence
- Nay, is it not cunning (couple it with an esurient character) the natural consequence of defective intellect?1833 August, [Thomas Carlyle], “Count Cagliostro: In Two Flights. Flight Last.”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume VIII...
- That girl with her back to us who waits / For her man to come home for his tea / Will wait until the paint disintegrates / And ruined dikes admit the esurient sea; […]1981, Derek Mahon, Courtyards in Delft (Gallery Books), Dublin: Gallery Press, →ISBN; quoted in The Recorder: A Journal of the American...
- I answered that such freedom would be worse than the vilest slavery, for it would leave me free to do nothing but grappel till death with clusterfist creditors and esurient Kirkists; […]1983, Alasdair Gray, “Sir Thomas’s Logopandocy”, in Unlikely Stories, Mostly, Edinburgh: Canongate, →ISBN; republished as Unlikely Stories...
Synonyms of esurient
- edacious
- gluttonous
- hungry as a hog
- insatiable
- lupine
- pantagruelian
- rapacious
- ravening
- ravenous
- voracious
2 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of esurient
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more esurient |
| superlative | most esurient |
| Noun | |
| plural | esurients |
Origin of esurient
Borrowed from Latin ēsurient, ēsurientem, from ēsuriēns (“hungering”), present participle of ēsuriō (“to be hungry, to hunger for something”), a desiderative verb from edō (“to eat”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁édti (“to eat”)) + -turiō (suffix indicating a desire for an action).
Words formed from esurient
Questions about esurient
- What does esurient mean?
- Esurient means very greedy or hungry; ravenous; (figuratively) avid, eager.
- How do you use esurient in a sentence?
- Nay, is it not cunning (couple it with an esurient character) the natural consequence of defective intellect?
- What part of speech is esurient?
- Esurient can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce esurient?
- Esurient is pronounced /ɪˈsjʊə.ɹɪ.ənt/ (UK).
Words near esurient in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: esurient (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-esurient.wav.
Cite this entry: “esurient.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/esurient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.