1
general::
wanting to eat
hungry
wanting to eat something:
• We were really hungry after our long walk. • It’s hard work cooking for a bunch of hungry kids.
peckish
[ not before noun ] British English informal a little hungry:
• I’m feeling a bit peckish. What’s in the fridge?
starving/ravenous
( also starved American English ) [ not before noun ] spoken very hungry and wanting to eat as soon as possible:
• I missed lunch and I’m absolutely starving. • Sam’s always ravenous when he gets home from school.
famished
very hungry. Famished is less common and sounds a little more formal than starving or ravenous:
• Everyone was famished by the time they arrived.
I could eat a horse!
spoken used to say that you are very hungry:
• ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Yeah, I could eat a horse.’
appetite
the desire for food that you have when you are hungry:
• Exercise usually gives me an appetite. • It’s healthy to have a good appetite.
ill because of lack of food
hungry
ill or weak because of not having enough to eat:
• terrible pictures of hungry children in Africa
starving
not having had enough food for a long time and likely to die soon without food:
• Because of the drought, millions of people were starving. • the starving refugees from the war
malnourished
formal unhealthy and thin because you have not had the right kinds of food over a long period of time:
• According to the report, one-fifth of the world’s population are malnourished. • malnourished infants
Longman-Thesaurus
2
general::
adj. VERBS be, feel, go, look the number of children who have to go hungry | become, get | make sb Seeing everyone eating had made him extremely hungry. ADV. desperately, dreadfully, extremely, ravenously, really, starving (informal), terribly, very We were all ravenously hungry after the walk. | a bit, quite, rather | always, permanently
Oxford Collocations Dictionary