famish

To famish means to suffer from extreme hunger or to be left without enough food for a long time. It can also mean to make someone very hungry by keeping food from them. The word is much stronger than simply feeling hungry after missing a meal; it suggests real weakness and serious lack. You might use it for people trapped without supplies, for prisoners, or for communities hit by war or crop failure. In modern English, the related form famished is far more common than the base verb.

Imagine a traveler lost in the desert, with no food for days and less strength each hour. That is the world of famish. The word means to suffer from extreme hunger, to waste away from lack of food, or to cause someone to go hungry. It is far stronger than ordinary hunger and belongs to situations of real deprivation.

Historically, the word often appeared in accounts of siege, poverty, shipwreck, prison, and famine, where people were slowly weakened because food was scarce or completely absent. In that older and more serious sense, a person could famish, and cruel conditions could also famish a population. The idea of failing strength sits at the center of the word.

There is also a weaker and more informal use: to make someone very hungry. A long walk, a cold day, or the smell of food might be said to famish you. Even so, the word usually carries a dramatic tone, and modern speakers more often say "starve," "go hungry," or use the adjective famished instead.

So the word points to severe hunger, not a small appetite. It belongs to stories of hardship and endurance, where the body is worn down by lack of food, or to emphatic speech that says someone has been made extremely hungry.