famish
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English famisshe, from famen (“starve”), from Old French afamer, ultimately from Latin famēs (“hunger”). Compare affamish, famine. Cognate with Spanish hambre (“hunger”).
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
famish (third-person singular simple present famishes, present participle famishing, simple past and past participle famished)
- (obsolete, transitive) To starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
- c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, […], published 1594, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
- Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The whilſt their owne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittiful.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section IV, member 1:
- Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, Epist. lib.1, epist.12, famish himself to death […]
- (transitive) To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 41:55:
- And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.
- 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- The pains of famished Tantalus [he] shall feel.
- (transitive) To kill, or to cause great suffering to, by depriving or denying anything necessary.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
- And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
- (transitive) To force, control, or constrain by famine.
- 1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC:
- He had […] famished Paris into a surrender.
- (intransitive) To die of hunger; to starve to death.
- (intransitive) To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
- c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
- You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
- (intransitive) To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 10:3:
- The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
References edit
- “famish”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.