Famish vs Ravenous - What's the difference?
famish | ravenous |
(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.
Very hungry.
* {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
, chapter=5, title= (rfc-sense) Eager for prey or gratification.
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. IX, ''Working Aristocracy
As a verb famish
is (obsolete|transitive) to starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.As an adjective ravenous is
very hungry.famish
English
Verb
(es)References
*ravenous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)A Cuckoo in the Nest, passage=The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. There is something humiliating about it.}}
- Supply-and-demand? One begins to be weary of such work. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause: — it is the Gospel of Despair!