starve S3 /stɑːv $ stɑːrv/
verb[
Language: Old English;
Origin: steorfan 'to die']
1. [intransitive] to suffer or die because you do not have enough to eat:
Thousands of people will starve if food doesn’t reach the city. pictures of starving children They’ll either die from the cold or starve to death (=die from lack of food).2. [transitive] to prevent someone from having enough food to live:
The poor dog looked like it had been starved.3. be starving (
also be starved American English) to be very hungry:
You must be starving!starve somebody/something of something (
also starve somebody/something for something American English)
phrasal verb [usually passive] to not give something that is needed:
The schools are starved of funding. The poor kid’s just starved for attention.starve somebody ↔ out phrasal verb to force someone to leave a place by preventing them from getting food:
If we can’t blast them out, we’ll starve them out! [TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲