Hungry Meaning
/ˈhʌŋ.ɡɹi/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjAffected by hunger; having the physical need for food.
adjCausing hunger.
Sentence Examples
When are we eating? I'm hungry!
I suppose you're hungry.
You can't be hungry. You've just had dinner.
CEFR Practice Quiz
After skipping breakfast, the students were very ____ by lunchtime.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I am so ____ that I feel like I could eat an entire large pizza all by myself right now.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English hungry, from Old English hungriġ, from Proto-West Germanic *hungrug, from Proto-Germanic *hungrugaz (“hungry”); equivalent to hunger + -y. Cognate with West Frisian hongerich (“hungry”), Dutch hongerig (“hungry”), German hungrig (“hungry”), Swedish hungrig (“hungry”), Icelandic hungraður (“hungry”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;"
— 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
"They rowed her in across the rolling foam, / The cruel, crawling foam, / The cruel, hungry foam, / To her grave beside the sea:"
— 1850, [Charles Kingsley], chapter V, in Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 5:
"It’s an astonishing roll call of future talent from when they were still young and hungry in Manhattan."
— 2022 November 23, Hadley Freeman, “Like a cinema virgin: how Madonna went stratospheric making Desperately Seeking Susan”, in The Guardian:
"[…] What is this? / Your knees to me? to your corrected son? / Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach / Fillip the stars […]"
— c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
After skipping breakfast, the students were very ____ by lunchtime.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I am so ____ that I feel like I could eat an entire large pizza all by myself right now.