famine
Widespread food scarcity
Famine is extreme scarcity of food affecting a large population, typically causing widespread starvation and death.
Famines result from drought, crop failure, war, or political decisions.
The word extends to severe shortages of other necessities: a famine of ideas, an energy famine.
The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s killed a million people and drove mass emigration.
When fields yield nothing
- failed harvestAgricultural season's total loss
- barrenUnable to produce
- dust bowlErosion-ravaged drought zone
- desertificationLand becoming barren, infertile
irrigation · rainfall · climate · locusts · blight · parched · arid · water scarcity
Extreme bodily thinness
- wastingUsing poorly, inefficiently
- gauntnessExtreme, angular thinness
- starvedSuffering extreme hunger
- food insecurityUncertain access to adequate meals
malnourished · pangs · skeletal · starving · deprivation · fasting · ravenous · hollow
Engineered Soviet famine
- siegeEncirclement forcing surrender
- blockadeSealing off a place
- wartimePeriod of armed conflict
- rationingLimiting distribution during scarcity
potato blight · collectivization · colonial · genocide · man-made · preventable · historical · chronicle
Helper of suffering people
- reliefEasing of distress
- aidSupport given freely
- emergencySerious sudden danger
- catastropheDevastating, large-scale misfortune
disaster · intervention · suffering · desperation · response · refugee · displacement · UN
Insufficient dietary intake
- beriberiVitamin B1 deficiency disease
- pellagraNiacin-lack illness
- scurvyVitamin C deficiency disease
- anemiaRed cell deficiency
vitamin deficiency · protein deficiency · stunting · wasting syndrome · rickets · night blindness · edema · cachexia
Total fatalities counted
- casualtiesThose killed or wounded
- fatalityDeath from accident
- perishCease to exist
- gravesBurial sites
burial · epidemic · disease · cholera · typhus · dysentery · death rate · population decline
crop failure
When fields yield nothing
- failed harvestAgricultural season's total loss
- barrenUnable to produce
- dust bowlErosion-ravaged drought zone
desertification · irrigation · rainfall · climate · locusts · blight · parched · arid · water scarcity · El Niño
emaciation
Extreme bodily thinness
food insecurity · malnourished · pangs · skeletal · starving · deprivation · fasting · ravenous · hollow · withered
Holodomor
Engineered Soviet famine
rationing · potato blight · collectivization · colonial · genocide · man-made · preventable · historical · chronicle · testament
humanitarian
Helper of suffering people
catastrophe · disaster · intervention · suffering · desperation · response · refugee · displacement · UN · Red Cross
undernourishment
Insufficient dietary intake
anemia · vitamin deficiency · protein deficiency · stunting · wasting syndrome · rickets · night blindness · edema · cachexia · deficiency diseases
death toll
Total fatalities counted
- casualtiesThose killed or wounded
- fatalityDeath from accident
- perishCease to exist
graves · burial · epidemic · disease · cholera · typhus · dysentery · death rate · population decline · orphans
- history termsempire, dynasty, colonialism, Renaissance, Enlightenment
- plot twistsplot twist, twist ending, surprise ending, unexpected turn, final reveal
- Medieval Peasant Lifeserfdom, plowing, farming, village, harvest
- subsistence farminghoe, seed saving, seeds, crops, family plots
- Little Ice Ageharsh winters, pack ice
- farm lifefarm, farmer, farmers, farming, barn
faminefeast
Elaborate ceremonial meal
abundance · plenty · harvest · bumper crop · bounty
famineabundance
Ample supply, overflowing
plenty · copiousness · bountifulness · excess · wealth
famineprosperity
Good fortune, success
flourishing · thriving · food security · well-being · satiety
- feast or famineMarked by wild extremes
- potato famineAgricultural disaster causing starvation
- famine reliefAssistance during mass hunger
- Irish Potato Famine1840s mass starvation event
- famine crisisAcute widespread food shortage
- Great FamineMass starvation in Ireland