famish
/ˈfamɪʃ/verb
famish is a verb meaning “To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-A-M-I-S-H, and it appears about once in every 63 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does famish mean?
verb
- 1
obsoleteTo starve (to death); to kill or destroy with hunger.
- 2
To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to cause to be very hungry.
- 3
To kill, or to cause great suffering to, by depriving or denying anything necessary.
- 4
To force, control, or constrain by famine.
- 5
To die of hunger; to starve to death.
- 6
To suffer extreme hunger or thirst, so as to be exhausted in strength, or to nearly perish.
- 7
To suffer extremity from deprivation of anything essential or necessary.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce famish?
- UK /ˈfamɪʃ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-famish.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of famish
- famishes present, singular, he/she/it
- famishing participle, present
- famished participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is famish?
Famish appears about once in every 63 million words in written English, the 249,463rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does famish come from?
From Middle English famisshe, from famen (“starve”), from Old French afamer, ultimately from Latin famēs (“hunger”). Compare affamish, famine. Cognate with Spanish hambre (“hunger”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).