Meaning & use
hunger
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Meanings
noununcountable
The uncomfortable feeling you have when you need food.
Grammar: Uncountable: feel hunger, not 'a hunger' in this sense.
Patterns
- feel hunger
- die of hunger
The children felt hunger by midmorning.
She ate quickly to satisfy her hunger.
Hunger kept him awake all night.
noununcountable
A situation in which people do not have enough food to live well.
Grammar: Used for a social problem: world hunger.
Patterns
- end hunger
- fight hunger
The charity works to end hunger in rural areas.
Drought brought widespread hunger to the region.
Child hunger remains a serious problem.
nounsingularfigurative
A strong wish or need for something, often followed by for.
Grammar: Often a hunger for something: a hunger for success.
Patterns
- a hunger for something
She had a hunger for knowledge.
Readers have a hunger for honest stories.
His hunger for power worried his friends.
verbintransitiveliterary
To want something very much, or to need food.
Grammar: Takes for or after: hunger for adventure.
Patterns
- hunger for something
- hunger after something
The crowd hungered for change.
He hungered for a quiet life.
After weeks at sea, they hungered for fresh bread.
Word forms
| plural | hungers |
|---|---|
| third person singular | hungers |
| past tense | hungered |
| past participle | hungered |
| -ing form | hungering |
Common combinations
- die of hunger
- Many animals die of hunger in harsh winters.
- satisfy your hunger
- A bowl of soup satisfied his hunger.
- world hunger
- Students raised money to fight world hunger.
- hunger for success
- The young player had a hunger for success.
- hunger pangs
- Hunger pangs woke her at dawn.
Synonyms and how they differ
- appetite
- Appetite is a desire for food or other pleasures, while hunger is a need.
- craving
- Craving is a strong wish for one particular thing, not general need.
- famine
- Famine is a severe, widespread lack of food in a region, much stronger than hunger.
- yearning
- Yearning is emotional and applies only to the figurative sense.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: hunger or hungry?
hunger vs hungry
Hungry is the adjective, as in I am hungry. Hunger is the noun, as in I feel hunger.
Practice
She had a deep hunger ___ knowledge.
Choose one answer.
The noun hunger takes for before the thing wanted: a hunger for knowledge. Of, to and at do not fit this pattern.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hunger”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.