Famish - What does it mean?
famish | |
(obsolete) To starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
*, I.iv.1:
*:Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, Epist. lib.1, epist.12 , famish himself to death […].
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. -- Gen. 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.
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 ? -- Shakespeare
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.
