starving

1. 1.

   the act of depriving of food or subjecting to famine

   “the besiegers used starvation to induce surrender”

   “they were charged with the starvation of children in their care”

   Synonymsstarvation

   Broaderprivation

1. 1.

   suffering from lack of food

   Synonymsstarved

   Similarmalnourished

Other forms of starving

plural

starvings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about starving

What does starving mean?

starving means "the act of depriving of food or subjecting to famine". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in starving?

starving has 2 syllables: star-ving. The stress falls on "star". In IPA it is /ˈstɑɹvɪŋ/.

What is another word for starving?

Close synonyms include starvation, starved. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is starving a common word?

starving is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.