WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
hun•gry /ˈhʌŋgri/USA pronunciation
adj., -gri•er, -gri•est.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- having a desire or need for food.
- eager; desirous:[be + ~ + for + object]She was hungry for success.
- indicating hunger or strong desire:a hungry look in a person's eyes.
- go hungry, to lack enough food:Many of the poor went hungry.
hun•gry
(hung′grē),USA pronunciation adj. -gri•er, -gri•est.
hun′gri•ly, adv.
hun′gri•ness, n.
- having a desire, craving, or need for food;
feeling hunger. - indicating, characteristic of, or characterized by hunger:He approached the table with a hungry look.
- strongly or eagerly desirous.
- lacking needful or desirable elements;
not fertile;
poor:hungry land. - marked by a scarcity of food:The depression years were hungry times.
- Informal Termsaggressively ambitious or competitive, as from a need to overcome poverty or past defeats:a hungry investment firm looking for wealthy clients.
- Middle English, Old English hungrig. See hunger, -y1 bef. 950
hun′gri•ness, n.
- 1. ravenous, famishing, starving. Hungry, famished, starved describe a condition resulting from a lack of food. Hungry is a general word, expressing various degrees of eagerness or craving for food:hungry between meals; desperately hungry after a long fast; hungry as a bear.Famished denotes the condition of one reduced to actual suffering from want of food, but sometimes is used lightly or in an exaggerated statement:famished after being lost in a wilderness; simply famished(hungry). Starved denotes a condition resulting from long-continued lack or insufficiency of food, and implies enfeeblement, emaciation, or death (originally death from any cause, but now death from lack of food):He looks thin and starved. By the end of the terrible winter, thousands had starved(to death). It is also used as a humorous exaggeration:I only had two sandwiches, pie, and some milk, so I'm simply starved(hungry).
- 1. sated, satiated, surfeited.
'hungrily' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):