Starve vs Consume - What's the difference?
starve | consume |
(obsolete) To die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away.
* 1596 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , IV.i.4:
To die because of lack of food or of not eating.
*
To be very hungry.
To destroy, make capitulate or at least make suffer by deprivation, notably of food.
To deprive of nourishment.
(transitive, British, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire) To kill with cold.
To use.
To eat.
To completely occupy the thoughts or attention of.
To destroy completely.
* Shakespeare
* Bible, Matthew vi. 20
(obsolete) To waste away slowly.
* Shakespeare
* 1899 , Kate Chopin, The Awakening :
In intransitive obsolete terms the difference between starve and consume
is that starve is to die; in later use especially to die slowly, waste away while consume is to waste away slowly.In transitive terms the difference between starve and consume
is that starve is to deprive of nourishment while consume is to destroy completely.starve
English
(wikipedia starve)Verb
- noble Britomart / Released her, that else was like to sterue , / Through cruell knife that her deare heart did kerue.
- Hey, ma, I'm starving !
- They starved the child until it withered away.
- I was half starved waiting out in that wind.
Derived terms
* starvation * starveling * starvingAnagrams
* * * English ergative verbsconsume
English
Verb
(consum)- The power plant consumes 30 tons of coal per hour.
- Baby birds consume their own weight in food each day.
- Desire consumed him.
- The building was consumed by fire.
- If he were putting to my house the brand / That shall consume it.
- Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume .
- Therefore, let Benedick, like cover'd fire, / Consume away in sighs.
- He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room.
