Word.ws English Dictionary

stay hungry

stay hungry verb: to maintain a strong motivation to achieve or compete; to avoid complacency.

Verb

stay hungry (third-person singular simple present stays hungry, present participle staying hungry, simple past and past participle stayed hungry)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To maintain a strong motivation to achieve or compete; to avoid complacency.
    • They've got three Super Bowl titles under their belts, but the Pittsburgh Steelers talked about staying hungry as the full squad of veterans arrived at training camp Friday.1979 July 21, “Steeler Veterans Arrive”, in Youngstown Vindicator, retrieved 08 Aug 2013, page 13
    • Faldo's main challenge will be to stay hungry despite the more than $10 million he has earned in business opportunities.1991 January 4, Jaime Diaz, “Golf: Light Mood as Golf Season Opens”, in New York Times, retrieved 08 Aug 2013

Examples of stay hungry in a sentence

  • But how to stay hungry when you're dining on caviar, sycophancy and willing women?2008 May 17, Richard Corliss and Mary Corliss, "Cannes Gets Real" (film review of Tyson), Time (retrieved 8 August 2013)
  • Steve Jobs said it best when he said, “stay hungry”.2013 March 12, Deborah Sweeney, “15 Lessons I Learned From 15 Years In Business”, in forbes.com, retrieved 08 Aug 2013:

Forms of stay hungry

third-person singular presentstays hungry
present participlestaying hungry
past participlestayed hungry
paststayed hungry

Questions about stay hungry

What does stay hungry mean?
Stay hungry means to maintain a strong motivation to achieve or compete; to avoid complacency.
How do you use stay hungry in a sentence?
But how to stay hungry when you're dining on caviar, sycophancy and willing women?
What part of speech is stay hungry?
Stay hungry is a verb.
What is the past tense of stay hungry?
The past tense of stay hungry is stayed hungry.

Words near stay hungry in the dictionary

  1. stay behinds
  2. stay bolt
  3. stay bolts
  4. stay classy
  5. stay frosty
  6. stay hungry
  7. stay in
  8. stay in one's lane
  9. stay loose
  10. stay on
  11. stay out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stay hungry (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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