starve S3 /stɑːv $ stɑːrv/ BrE AmE verb
[ Language: Old English ; Origin: steorfan 'to die' ]
1 . [intransitive] to suffer or die because you do not have enough to eat:
Thousands of people will starve if food doesn’t reach the city.
pictures of starving children
They’ll either die from the cold or starve to death (=die from lack of food) .
2 . [transitive] to prevent someone from having enough food to live:
The poor dog looked like it had been starved.
3 . be starving ( also be starved American English ) to be very hungry:
You must be starving!
starve somebody/something of something ( also starve somebody/something for something American English ) phrasal verb [usually passive]
to not give something that is needed:
The schools are starved of funding.
The poor kid’s just starved for attention.
starve somebody ↔ out phrasal verb
to force someone to leave a place by preventing them from getting food:
If we can’t blast them out, we’ll starve them out!