ppl. a. [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. 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. 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. Shaks., 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, which showed that the Bedouins had some thoughts of settling to a sedentary life.
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 borny finger of a workman.
3. Emaciated with or as with want of food, lean, thin.
1597. Shaks., 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. Meager, 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. 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.
c. 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].
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. Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 252. Alas poore hart that kisse is comfortlesse, As frozen water to a starued snake. Ibid. (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, Jane 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 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[mily] Gerard, Land beyond Forest, II. xlvii. 255. Starved-looking daisies, and spiritless, emaciated camomiles, are all the flowers to be seen.
1895. W. C. Scully, Kafir Stories, 23. His dog, Sibi—a starved-looking mongrel greyhound.
Hence Starvedly 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.
