starved, ppl. a.
(stɑːvd)
[f. starve v. + -ed1.]
1. Of a plant-stem, branch of a tree: Dead, dry, withered. Obs. exc. Her.
| 1580 R. Parsons Reas. Catholiques refuse Church 50 b, As dead..as a starued stake in the hedge, from bearing of flowers. [1585: cf. starving ppl. a. 3.] 1610 J. Guillim Her. iii. vii. 106 He beareth Argent, three sterued branches, slipped Sable... This Example is of different nature..being mortified and vnuested of the verdour which sometimes it had. 1754 Boyer Gt. Theat. Honour (ed. 2) 116 Starved, Adj. (or dead, speaking of Branches of Trees without Leaves), Mort, Sec. 1828–40 Berry Encycl. Her. I, Starved, a term used by heralds to denote a branch of a tree when stripped of all its leaves. |
2. a. That suffers want of food or the necessaries of life; famished; poverty-stricken. starved out: driven out by poverty.
| 1559 Mirr. Mag., Owen Glendour i, My body and fame she [sc. Fortune] hathe made leane and slender, For I, poore wretch am sterved Owen Glendour. 1596 Shakes. Merch. V. v. i. 295 Faire Ladies you drop Manna in the way Of starued people. 1673 R. Stapylton Juvenal Sat. xiv. 168 And thy sterv'd droves, thou send'st into his Corn. 1709 Pope Ess. Crit. 419 What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starv'd hackney sonneteer, or me? 1823 Scott Quentin D. ii, This youth will do as much honour to it as a starved mouse to a housewife's cheese. 1878 J. Davidson Inverurie & Earld. Garioch v. 155 Leslie..was occupied in 1600 by William Forbes, the starved-out minister of Kintore. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1590 Spenser F.Q. iii. iii. 34 And the greene grasse, that groweth, they shall bren, That euen the wild beast shall dy in starued den. 1826 Lamb Elia, Pop. Fallacies xii, For a starved grate, and a scanty firing..he finds [at the alehouse] in the depths of winter always a blazing hearth. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. viii. 81 Scanty as this starved flora may seem to the botanists of more favored zones. 1912 J. S. Black & G. Chrystal Life W. R. Smith xii. 505 Here and there were a few meagre patches of starved wheat or barley. |
c. Atrophied.
| 1832 Lindley Introd. Bot. 419 Starved (depauperatus); when some part is less perfectly developed than is usual with plants of the same family. Thus, when the lower scales of a head of a Cyperaceous plant produce no flowers, these scales are said to be starved. 1856 Henslow Dict. Bot. Terms. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 816 Essentially the same formation as a small starved wart upon the horny finger of a workman. |
3. a. Emaciated with or as with want of food, lean, thin.
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iii. ii. 327 This same staru'd Iustice [Shallow]. a 1637 B. Jonson Sad Shepherd i. vii, A starv'd Muttons carkasse Would better fit their palates. 1638 Junius Paint. Ancients 35 They are puffed up, not stately; starved, not delicate. 1819 Keats La belle Dame sans Merci xi, I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide. 1885 Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) V. 81 The American Pika, or ‘Little Chief’ Hare (Lagomys princeps)... The miners and hunters in the West know these oddities as ‘conies’ and ‘starved rats’. |
b. transf. and fig. Meagre, poor, jejune.
| 1747 Wesley Char. Methodist 6 May the Lord God of my Fathers preserve me, from such a poor, starved Religion as This! 1870 F. R. Wilson Ch. Lindisf. 34 A nave..with a small, stiff, starved tower. 1874 J. T. Micklethwaite Mod. Par. Churches 130 Logs [of wood] tortured into the forms of starved masonry. 1874 Mahaffy Soc. Life Greece v. 134 Mr. Müller Strübing shows..how wretchedly poor and starved are the allusions of Thucydides. |
c. Of soil: Poor in fertilizing elements.
| a 1591 H. Smith 2nd Serm. Jonah's Punishm. (1675) 624 Say not, I have a stony, or a starved, or a thorny ground. 1763 Museum Rust. (ed. 2) I. 93 We are obliged to dig deep for a poorer or more starved kind [of gravel]. |
d. Pottery. Of a glaze: lacking the expected brilliance after firing.
| 1964 H. Hodges Artifacts ii. 52 Under-firing may result in starved glazes which have a dull appearance. 1968 H. Powell Pottery Handbk. Clay, Glaze & Colour ii. 56 A starved glaze is lacking in shine. a 1977 Harrison Mayer Ltd. Catal. 18/2 Starved glaze. The glaze surface is dull in areas which have been adjacent to porous refractories during firing. As the term implies glaze volatiles are sucked away from the surface of the glaze by the porous refractory. |
4. Perished with cold. Now chiefly dial. and poet.
| 1581 Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 68 So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence, apparelled..with figures and flowers, extreamelie winter-starued. 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. iii. i. 252 Alas poore hart that kisse is comfortlesse, As frozen water to a starued snake. 1593 ― 2 Hen. VI, iii. i. 343, I feare me, you but warme the starued Snake. 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 769 [The] Serenate, which the starv'd Lover sings To his proud fair. 1847 C. Brontë J. Eyre vii, Behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic Prol. 1 Such a starved bank of moss Till that May⁓morn Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born! 1894 Bridges Palm Willow i, See, whirling snow sprinkles the starved fields. 1898 J. Hutchinson Archives Surg. IX. 302 When I get a cold I never shew it, but only feel chilly and starved. |
5. Comb., as starved-looking adj.; † starved-gut a., famished.
| a 1653 Goughe's Queen i. 131 (Bang) Muret. You are a stinking starv'd-gut star-gazer. 1888 E. D. Gerard Land beyond Forest II. xlvii. 255 Starved-looking daisies, and spiritless, emaciated camomiles, are all the flowers to be seen. 1895 W. C. Skully Kafir Stories 23 His dog, Sibi—a starved-looking mongrel greyhound. |
Hence ˈstarvedly adv.
| 1606 Bp. Hall Medit. & Vows iii. §24. 54 Like some boasting housekeeper, which keepeth open doors for one day with much cheer, & liues staruedly al the yeer after. 1865 Athenæum 28 Jan. 122/2 But our lively lady..is ‘driven wild’ by the sight of hepaticas in myriads, which only grow at home starvedly. |