| Definitions | famish
verb (famish, es)
- (transitive) To starve, kill, or destroy with hunger.
- (transitive) To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to distress with hunger.
- 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.
- (transitive) To kill, or to cause to suffer extremity, by deprive, deprivation or denial of anything necessary.
- And him of breath, if not of bread. -- Milton.
- (transitive) To force or constrain by famine.
- He had famished Paris into a surrender. -- Burke.
- (intransitive) To die of hunger; to starve.
- (intransitive) 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 ? -- Shakespeare
- (intransitive) To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
- The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to . -- Prov. x. 3.
Etymology: OE. famen; cf. OF. afamer, L. fames. See famine, Famine, and cf. affamish, Affamish.
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