starve

/stɑːv/

Etymology

From Middle English sterven (“to die, perish”), from Old English steorfan (“to die, perish”), from Proto-West Germanic *sterban, from Proto-Germanic *sterbaną (“to become stiff, die”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)terp- (“to lose strength, become numb, be motionless”); or from Proto-Indo-European *sterbʰ- (“to become stiff”), from *ster- (“stiff”); or a conflation of the aforementioned. Cognate with Scots stairve, sterve (“to die, perish, starve”), Saterland Frisian stjerwa (“to die”), West Frisian stjerre (“to die”), Dutch sterven (“to die”), German Low German starven (“to die”), German sterben (“to die”), Icelandic stirfinn (“peevish, froward”), Albanian shterp (“sterile, unproductive, barren land”).

starve means to die because of lack of food or of not eating. Lexicurio rates it Distinctive — a strength score of 69 out of 100.

verb

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.”
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: […]”
To be very hungry.“I was starving so I wrote S.O.S. on the desert island using rocks.”
To kill or attempt to kill by depriving of food.
To make suffer severely by depriving of food.
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.”