crave
verb
Simple meaning
To desire strongly, so as to satisfy an appetite.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
krayvIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɹeɪv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
ambitransitive
Have a craving, appetite, or great desire for
ambitransitive
To desire strongly, so as to satisfy an appetite; to long or yearn for.
Plead or ask for earnestly
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Have a craving, appetite, or great desire for
Used this way, crave is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use crave
- “I humbly crave your indulgence to read this letter until the end.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An intense desire for some particular thing.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: have a craving or appetite
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.