starving

Verb

starve (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.
   • 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, →ISBN, page 48
2. (intransitive) To suffer severely because of lack of food or of not eating.
   • Ah (ſaid the Ape as ſighing vvondrous ſad) / Its an hard caſe, vvhen men of good deſeruing / Muſt either driuen be perforce to ſteruing, / Or asked for their pas by euerie ſquib: […]1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale.”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC
3. (intransitive) To be very hungry.
   • I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.
4. (transitive) To kill or attempt to kill by depriving of food.
5. (transitive) To make suffer severely by depriving of food.

   Synonyms:

   famish

6. (transitive) To 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.

See all 11 meanings of starve