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famish. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
famish, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
famish in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English famisshe, from famen (“starve”), from Old French afamer, ultimately from Latin famēs (“hunger”). Compare affamish, famine. Cognate with Spanish hambre (“hunger”).
Pronunciation
Verb
famish (third-person singular simple present famishes, present participle famishing, simple past and past participle famished)
- (obsolete, transitive) To starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: (First Quarto), London: Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, , published 1594, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:Some ſay that Rauens foſter forlorne children, / The whilſt their owne birds famiſh in their neſts: / Oh be to me though thy hard hart ſay no, / Nothing ſo kinde but ſomething pittiful.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section IV, member 1:Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, Epist. lib.1, epist.12, famish himself to death […]
- (transitive) To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry.
1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:The pains of famished Tantalus [he] shall feel.
- (transitive) To kill, or to cause great suffering to, by depriving or denying anything necessary.
1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
- (transitive) To force, control, or constrain by famine.
- (intransitive) To die of hunger; to starve to death.
- (intransitive) To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
- (intransitive) To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
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