Meaning & use
hungry as a horse
Last updated
Meaning
phrasefixed phraseinformal
Extremely hungry; wanting to eat a lot of food.
Grammar: Used after the verb 'be' or 'feel': I'm hungry as a horse. It works like an adjective phrase.
Patterns
- be hungry as a horse
- feel hungry as a horse
After hiking all day without lunch, I was hungry as a horse.
The kids came in from playing football hungry as horses and ate everything in the fridge.
I skipped breakfast, so by noon I was hungry as a horse.
Common combinations
- be hungry as a horse
- After the long swim, she was hungry as a horse and ordered two sandwiches.
- feel hungry as a horse
- I feel hungry as a horse after working in the garden all morning.
- come in hungry as a horse
- The children came in hungry as horses after playing outside.
Synonyms and how they differ
- starving
- Informal and stronger than 'hungry as a horse'; it suggests you urgently need food, not just that you want a lot.
- famished
- More formal and dramatic; it means extremely hungry but is used in writing or careful speech, not in everyday chat.
- ravenous
- A formal or literary word for very hungry; it sounds more serious than the playful 'hungry as a horse'.
Opposites
Commonly confused: hungry as a horse or eat like a horse?
hungry as a horse vs eat like a horse
This means someone eats large amounts of food regularly, not that they are hungry right now. 'Hungry as a horse' describes a current feeling of hunger.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'hungry as a horse' correctly?
Choose one answer.
The phrase means extremely hungry for food, so it fits the marathon context. Option An is wrong because it uses the phrase for wanting success, not food. Option C is odd because it repeats 'horse' literally. Option D is wrong because 'have' cannot be followed by this adjective phrase; you need 'be' or 'feel'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hungry as a horse”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.