[f. L. ēsurient-em, pr. pple. of ēsurīre: see ESURIENT and -ENCE.] The state of being esurient; hunger, appetite; ‘neediness and greediness.’
1825. Coleridge, Lit. Rem. (1836), II. 338. Esurience … the origin and interpretation of whose name is found in the Hebrew root signifying hunger, and thence capacity.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, I. viii. (1872), 53. A ray of empyrean light;—but imbedded … in such indolences and esuriences as had made strange work with it.
1889. Swinburne, Study Ben Jonson, 40. No pretext beyond the fact of esurience … is suggested for the villainy of Subtle.
