Word Direct Answers

What does "famish" mean?

Famish: To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to distress with hanger. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Cen. xli.

Additional senses

  1. 2.The pains of famished Tantalus he'll feel. Dryden.
  2. 3.To kill, or to cause to suffer extremity, by deprivation or denial of anything necessary. And famish him of breath, if not of bread. Milton.
  3. 4.To force or constrain by famine. He had famished Paris into a surrender. Burke.
  4. 5.To die of hunger; to starve.
  5. 6.To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to come near to perish. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish Shak.
  6. 7.To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. Prov. x. 3.

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