Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use starve in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Starve means to die because of lack of food or of not eating. Example: “I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.”

Examples of starve by meaning

verbTo die because of lack of food or of not eating.

  • 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, →ISBN, 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

verbTo be very hungry.

  • I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.

verbTo force a combatant to submit or surrender by depriving of food, as in a targeted siege.

  • If they refuse to surrender the garrison, we'll just starve them out.

verbTo deprive of nourishment or of some vital component.

  • The uncaring parents starved the child of love.
  • The patient’s brain was starved of oxygen.

verbTo kill with cold; to (cause to) die from cold.

  • I was half starved waiting out in that wind.

More sentences with starve

  • I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.From the entry it
  • They hoped to starve the terrorists of the oxygen of publicity.From the entry oxygen
  • Why would you be watching comedy when there are kids starving right now?From the entry comedy
  • Look at that starving dog; he's nothing more than skin and bones.From the entry skin and bones
  • We're in a no-win situation: if we move, they kill us; if we stay, we starve.From the entry no-win
  • Say your family is starving and you don't have any money, is it okay to steal some food?From the entry say
  • His starved flesh hung loosely on his once imposing frame.From the entry frame
  • We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom.From the entry drown
  • I'm starving! I missed breakfast this morning.From the entry miss
  • I’m starved! I haven’t eaten since breakfast.From the entry starved
  • I'm starving, but that rotting meat is unstomachable.From the entry unstomachable
  • It kills me to learn how many poor people are practically starving in this country while rich moguls spend such outrageous amounts on useless luxuries.From the entry kill
  • When I was 18 I was grimy af. I wouldn't share my food with you even if you were starving and about to die.From the entry grimy
  • You can rest assured that a sick child will say when it's again ready to eat, so it won't starve and doesn't need to be cajoled into eating.From the entry rest
  • Zimbabwe was a nation of multitrillionaires who were starving to death.2017 March 9, Todd A. Knoop, The Traveling Economist: Using Economics to Think About What Makes Us All So Different and the Same…. From the entry multitrillionaire
  • These authors also observed increased proportions of 18:1 in peristernal adipose tissue of starved reindeer calves.2015 December 18, “Fatty Acid Composition of Muscle, Adipose Tissue and Liver from Muskoxen ( Ovibos moschatus ) Living in West…. From the entry peristernal
  • Are you afraid they'll starve in my cattleshed?" asked Gunvanta, sarcastically.2014, Vishwas Patel, A Dirge for the Damned, →ISBN. From the entry cattleshed
  • If you're starving for some admiring comments, you might have to prime the pump.2012 -, Poppy Smith, Why Can't He Think More Like Me?, →ISBN. From the entry prime the pump
  • “If ya starve to death I’ll have social services all over me like a bleedin’ rash.”2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry all over someone like a rash
  • I mean, it’s not like Coach Eric’s kids back in England will actually be porridgeless and starving.2010, Amy Ignatow, The Popularity Papers: Love and Other Fiascoes, page 95. From the entry porridgeless
  • There was something indescribable when a nearly starving kid tasted that first slice of maple syrupy pancake.2007, Raymond P. Berberian, “Retro Summers”, in Margaret Lorine, Sansing McPherson, Norma Van Amberg, editors, Hilton Head Island…. From the entry maple syrupy
  • If these folk had the same neurosis in their cooking, they would starve to death!2005, Mario Rinvolucri, “Unleashing Writing Creativity in Students”, in English Teaching Forum, volume 43, number 3, page 42. From the entry trash-bin
  • Major funding for this book was made possible by deliberately starving a family of four in Tennessee.2004, George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page…. From the entry deliberately
  • Thousands more were either killed in battle or starved to death by the Chinese army.2004, Paul Hattaway, Peoples of the Buddhist World: A Christian Prayer Diary, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 65. From the entry Golog
  • TUPOLSKI: A man wakes up in the iron gibbet he's been left to starve to death in.2003, Martin McDonagh, “Act One, Scene One”, in The Pillowman, →ISBN, pages 17-18. From the entry gibbet
  • We were starving for tobacco—makhorka, actually, which, according to soldiers, helped survive cold, hunger and everyday toil.2003, David Victor Rosenstein, The Reason to Love This Country, page 36. From the entry makhorka
  • The train moved on again, keeping us prisoners in a stench-filled car, starving, suffocating, insensated.2002, Shony A. Braun, My Heart Is a Violin, →ISBN, page 60. From the entry insensate
  • Being a pop star means its goodbye to starving in a poxy garret.1990 January 13, David Quantick, Steven Wells, “Is It Rock Art Or Is It Nart?”, in New Musical Express. From the entry poxy
  • Things edible would always be respected by a man who had nearly starved to death.1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 6, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Penguin, published 1977, page 279. From the entry thickset
  • They either starve, take up smuggling or invade the citronella circuit in a beat-up revival.1951, LIFE, volume 30, number 26, page 94. From the entry citronella circuit
  • All your Italian friends must be starving now that we have "liberated" them.1944 December 4 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “[Letter dated 4 December 1944]”, in To a Young Actress: The Letters of Bernard…. From the entry liberate
  • True, our cash would run out, but Charleton wouldn't let us starve.1939 March, W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden, Christopher Isherwood, “Travel-diary. Chapter 7.”, in Journey to a War, London: Faber & Faber […]…. From the entry thunderbox
  • She will retain her flapper figure--- and starve herself to do it!1926, Pennsylvania's Health - Volume 4. From the entry calorize

Meaning of starve

  1. verb To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
  2. verb To suffer severely because of lack of food or of not eating.
  3. verb To be very hungry.

Full definition of starve

Questions about starve in a sentence

How do you use starve in a sentence?
Starve is used as a verb. For example: “I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.”
What is a short sentence with starve?
“I'm starving! I missed breakfast this morning.”
What does starve mean?
Starve means to die because of lack of food or of not eating.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: starve (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use starve in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/starve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.