ravenous
/ˈɹævənəs/
ravenous adjective: very hungry.
Adjective
ravenous (comparative more ravenous, superlative most ravenous)
- Very hungry.
- The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. There is something humiliating about it.1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
- You must remember no one had eaten a thing for several days. They were ravenous. So for a while there was no conversation at all. There was only the sound of crunching and chewing as the animals attacked the succulent food.1970, Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, page 58
- Greedy, characterized by strong desires.
- Supply-and-demand? One begins to be weary of such work. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause: — it is the Gospel of Despair!1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. IX, Working Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern...
- Mrs. Michael turned out to be a ravenous, fast-fading woman in a slashed skirt and a low blouse over an unappetising chest. While her husband did things in his shed, where he appeared to live, Pym inexpertly mixed the Yorkshire pudding and fought off her embraces...1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
ravenous meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
ravenous in Urdu
- بےحد بھوکا, حریص, لٹیرا, ندیدہ
ravenous in Bengali
- অতিশয় ক্ষুধার্ত, বুভুক্ষু
ravenous in Malayalam
- ravenous
- ആർത്തി āṟtti
ravenous in Kannada
- ತುಂಬಾ ಹಸಿದ
More languagesFewer languages
- ravenous in Punjabi
- ਲਾਲਚੀ lālcī
Examples of ravenous in a sentence
- Creating biotic mass effects takes such a toll on metabolism that active biotics develop ravenous appetites.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Biotics: Life as a Biotic Codex entry:
- Ravenous, I order one more wine and a selection of cheese and biscuits.2023 February 8, Greg Morse, “Crossing the border... by Sleeper”, in RAIL, number 976, page 43:
Synonyms of ravenous
Forms of ravenous
| comparative | more ravenous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most ravenous |
Origin of ravenous
From Middle English ravenous, ravynous, from Old French ravineus. By surface analysis, ravin + -ous. As seen at raven and ravin, the word comes from a root referring to predation, not from the root referring to ravens (corvid birds); but folk etymology notes that the latter hypothesis seems plausible because ravens can often seem ravenous (especially as nestlings).
Words formed from ravenous
- ravenously
- ravenousness
- ravenous hunger
Questions about ravenous
- What does ravenous mean?
- Ravenous means very hungry.
- What is ravenous in Urdu?
- Ravenous in Urdu is بےحد بھوکا, حریص, لٹیرا. See Ravenous meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use ravenous in a sentence?
- Creating biotic mass effects takes such a toll on metabolism that active biotics develop ravenous appetites.
- What part of speech is ravenous?
- Ravenous is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ravenous?
- Ravenous is pronounced /ˈɹævənəs/.
Words near ravenous in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ravenous (page history and authors); ravenous (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ravenous (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ആർത്തി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ravenous (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਲਾਲਚੀ (Punjabi) (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-ravenous.wav.
Cite this entry: “ravenous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ravenous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.