famish
Wither from hunger
To famish is to suffer extreme hunger or cause someone to starve.
The word appears most often as the adjective famished, meaning ravenously hungry: I'm famished—let's get lunch.
While famished is common in casual speech, famish itself sounds literary or archaic: The siege was meant to famish them into surrender.
Perish from hunger
- ravenousExtremely hungry, insatiable
- hungerNeed for nourishment
- emaciateBecome dangerously thin
- wastingUsing poorly, inefficiently
malnourished · undernourished · perish · waste away · languish · weakened · gaunt · skeletal
Prolonged water scarcity
- crop failureWhen fields yield nothing
- food crisisSevere shortage of sustenance
- starvationExtreme nutritional deprivation
- blightPlant disease causing decay
humanitarian aid · food insecurity · siege · blockade · rationing · subsistence · scarcity · disaster
Lacking necessities
- bereftDeprived through loss
- wantingAbsent or insufficient
- lackingBeing without something
- deniedRefused or disavowed
insufficiency · deficiency · scarcity · dearth · paucity · shortage · void · absence
Extremely lacking in money
- destituteUtterly without means
- penuryExtreme lack of money
- indigenceExtreme poverty, total want
- hardshipSuffering from difficult circumstances
destitution · neediness · underprivileged · dispossessed · pauperism · beggary · squalor · want
starve
Perish from hunger
wasting · malnourished · undernourished · perish · waste away · languish · weakened · gaunt · skeletal · hollow
drought
Prolonged water scarcity
- crop failureWhen fields yield nothing
- food crisisSevere shortage of sustenance
- starvationExtreme nutritional deprivation
blight · humanitarian aid · food insecurity · siege · blockade · rationing · subsistence · scarcity · disaster · catastrophe
deprived
Lacking necessities
denied · insufficiency · deficiency · scarcity · dearth · paucity · shortage · void · absence · inadequacy
impoverished
Extremely lacking in money
hardship · destitution · neediness · underprivileged · dispossessed · pauperism · beggary · squalor · want · struggling
desperate
Driven by urgent need
- anguishedSeverely emotionally distressed
- hopelessBeyond possibility of success
- distressedSuffering emotional turmoil
frantic · helpless · dire · plight · suffering · agonizing · torment · crisis · extremity
- 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