famish
verb
Simple meaning
To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
famishSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfæmɪʃ
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
intransitive
To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
transitive
To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry.
intransitive
To die of hunger; to starve to death.
intransitive
To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
Die of food deprivation
transitive
To kill, or to cause great suffering to, by depriving or denying anything necessary.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
Used this way, famish is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It lands hard, so it overstates anything mild. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Very strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Harsh or blunt
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.