Origin: before 950; Middle English, Old English hungrig. See hunger, -y1 Related formshun·gri·ly, adverb
hun·gri·ness, noun
Can be confused: Hungary,
hungry (see synonym note at
the current entry).
Synonyms
1. ravenous, famishing, starving. Hungry, famished, starved describe a condition resulting from a lack of food. Hungry is a general word, expressing various degrees of eagerness or craving for food: hungry between meals; desperately hungry after a long fast; hungry as a bear. Famished denotes the condition of one reduced to actual suffering from want of food, but sometimes is used lightly or in an exaggerated statement: famished after being lost in a wilderness; simply famished (hungry). Starved denotes a condition resulting from long-continued lack or insufficiency of food, and implies enfeeblement, emaciation, or death (originally death from any cause, but now death from lack of food): He looks thin and starved. By the end of the terrible winter, thousands had starved (to death). It is also used as a humorous exaggeration: I only had two sandwiches, pie, and some milk, so I'm simply starved (hungry).
Antonyms
1. sated, satiated, surfeited.