Crossword clues for famish
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Famish \Fam"ish\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Famished; p. pr. & vb. n. Famishing.] [OE. famen; cf. OF. afamer, L. fames. See Famine, and cf. Affamish.]
To starve, kill, or destroy with hunger.
--Shak.-
To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to distress with hanger.
And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.
--Cen. xli. 55.The pains of famished Tantalus he'll feel.
--Dryden. -
To kill, or to cause to suffer extremity, by deprivation or denial of anything necessary.
And famish him of breath, if not of bread.
--Milton. -
To force or constrain by famine.
He had famished Paris into a surrender.
--Burke.
Famish \Fam"ish\, v. i.
To die of hunger; to starve.
-
To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to come near to perish.
You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
--Shak. -
To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish.
--Prov. x. 3.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"cause to hunger," c.1400, famyschen, "alteration of famen (late 14c.), a shortening of Old French afamer (12c., Modern French affamer), from Vulgar Latin *affamare "to bring to hunger," from ad famem, from Latin fames "hunger" (see famine).\n
\nEnding changed mid-14c. to -ish under influence of ravish, anguish, etc. It also once had an intransitive sense and was so used by Shakespeare and Milton. Related: Famished; famishing.
Wiktionary
vb. (context obsolete transitive English) To starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
WordNet
v. be hungry; go without food; "Let's eat--I'm starving!" [syn: starve, hunger] [ant: be full]
deprive of food; "They starved the prisoners" [syn: starve] [ant: feed]
die of food deprivation; "The political prisoners starved to death"; "Many famished in the countryside during the drought" [syn: starve]
Usage examples of "famish".
As, therefore, he could place no confidence in Cuesta and the Spanish army, and as with 17,000 British forces fatigued and famishing, he could not hope successfully to fight with two French armies each about three times stronger than his own, he resolved to retire to Portugal.
Her dextrier puckered up her mouth to spitsear when the enormous moth crossed the air between them too fast even to see and clasped the handlingers to it, slobbering like a famished man.
Between them and the vision, between the fecund San Joaquin, reeking with fruitfulness, and the millions of Asia crowding toward the verge of starvation, lay the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam, implacable, insatiable, huge--its entrails gorged with the life blood that it sucked from an entire commonwealth, its ever hungry maw glutted with the harvests that should have fed the famished bellies of the whole world of the Orient.
Famished and homeless, loathed and loathing, wild, And hating good--for his immortal foe, He changed from starry shape, beauteous and mild, To a dire Snake, with man and beast unreconciled.
Thrasillus hearing all the matter, and knowing not by what meanes he might end his life, for he thought his sword was not sufficient to revenge so great a crime, at length went to the same Sepulchre, and cryed with a lowd voice, saying: o yee dead spirites whom I have so highly and greatly offended, vouchsafe to receive me, behold I make Sacrifice unto you with my whole body : which said, hee closed the Sepulchre, purposing to famish himselfe, and to finish his life there in sorrow.
Because he was starting to get a bit hungry himself, and he figured that Puma would be famished after her ordeal, he decided to make a brief stop at a minimart to pick up some tasty snacks for the return trip.
Most of the illnesses going about, Zachary, are afflicting the famished and the feeble.
Night has drawn her jewelled pall And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace Their mimic constellations, if it fall That one should see the moon rise through the lace Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall, That surely would he take great ill thereof And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.
Most serious of these were those former sovereign governments and legal systems, which had seemed effaced, moribund or prostrate during the desolation of the Famished and Fever-stricken Fifties.
NOSE BECOMES OUTRAGEOUSLY LONG The next morning poor, jaded, famished Passepartout said to himself that he must get something to eat at all hazards, and the sooner he did so the better.
Gesturing to the heavily-laden tray a subordinate set on a low taboret between them, he invited Janchan to help himself, which the princeling did without ceremony, being famished.
Why, I had to make Skippy stop at a chop house on the way to the theater, I was that famished.
We got up at midnight, pleasantly surprised to find ourselves famishing with hunger, and a delicious supper waiting for us.
Then again, maybe the clip embodies an absurdist view of life that he kept hidden from his peers, most of whom perceived him to have the famished appetites and clouded sensibility of a creature in a shooter game.
At the elbow of every famishing passenger stood a beneficent coal-black glossy fairy, in a white linen apron and jacket, serving him with that alacrity and kindliness and grace which make the negro waiter the master, not the slave of his calling, which disenthrall it of servility, and constitute him your eager host, not your menial, for the moment.