Forms: 4–6 famin, famyn(e, 4– famine. [a. F. famine = Pr. famina, f. late L. type *famīna, f. fames hunger.]
1. Extreme and general scarcity of food, in a town, country, etc.; an instance of this, a period of extreme and general dearth.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. VII. 309.
| Famyn schal a-Ryse | |
| Þorw Flodes and foul weder. |
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VI. clxxxvi. 186. By reason wherof ensued a great famyne.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 81. The violent famine dyd frustrate all these appoyntmentes.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxvii. 157. If in a great famine he take the food by force, or stealth, which he cannot obtaine for mony, nor charity; or in defence of his life, snatch away another mans Sword, he is totally Excused.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 285. A long and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fate, Wks. (Bohn), II. 315. Famine typhus, frost, war, suicide and effete races, must be reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world.
fig. 1644. Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 72. Should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it, to bring a famin upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measur’d to us by their bushel?
b. personified.
1610. Histrio-m., VI. 16. Thin Famine needs must follow Poverty.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 185.
| He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend | |
| Blows mildew from between his shrivell’d lips, | |
| And taints the golden ear. |
2. transf. An extreme dearth or scarcity of something specified, material or immaterial.
1611. Bible, Amos viii. 11. Behold, the daies come, saith the Lord GOD, I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 184. These negroes … have no famine of Natures gifts and blessings.
1681. R. Knox, Hist. Ceylon, 153. Yet could I not forget my native Countrey England, and lamented under the Famine of Gods Word and Sacraments, the want whereof I found greater than all earthly wants.
1888. L’pool Daily Post, 26 June, 4/8. The threatened water famine.
1889. Pall Mall G., 7 Nov., 3/3. The perennial talk of an ivory famine has as yet come to nothing.
3. Want of food, hunger; hence, starvation.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Pard. T., 123. And schold hir children sterve for famyn.
c. 1450. Merlin, 224. The Citee … was right stronge, that nothynge ne dowted, saf only for famyn.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. 510. The daughter that gaue sucke to her father who was condemned to die of that ancient and usuall punishment of famine, which never suffereth a sounde man to passe the seventh daie.
1605. Shaks., Macb., V. v. 40.
| Macb. If thou speak’st false, | |
| Vpon the next Tree shall thou hang aliue | |
| Till Famine cling thee. |
1773. Observ. State Poor, 8. More really die of famine than those who are found.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, III. 101. Their horses, as well as themselves, had recovered from past, famine and fatigue, and were again fit for active service.
4. Violent appetite, as of a famished person; chiefly fig.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 32. Of love the famine I fonde … To fede.
1600. Dekker, Fortunatus, Wks. 1873, I. 169.
| On all their pride, the famine of base gold | |
| Hath made your soules to murders hands be sold, | |
| Onely to be cald rich. |
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 847.
| Death | |
| Grinnd horrible a gastly smile, to hear | |
| His famine should be fill’d. |
1858. C. S. Middleton, Shelley and His Writing, I. xvii. 168. He was one of those who having once drunk at the fountain of knowledge, was sent forth upon the world to experience that he who tastes of those waters shall never cease thirsting, but, striving ever to quench his thirst at the various channels open to him, shall thereby only render it so much the more the famine of his nature.
5. Comb.: a. simple attributive, as famine-blight, -prices, -wolf; b. instrumental, as famine-hollowed, -pinched; famine-bread, a species of lichen (Umbilicaria arctica); famine-fever, (a) typhus; (b) relapsing fever.
1845. Mrs. Norton, Child of Islands (1846), 111. *Famine-blights that swept from east to west.
1887. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), XXII. 409, ‘Spitzbergen.’ The so-called *‘famine bread’ … which has maintained the life of so many arctic travellers.
1876. Ouida, Winter City, iii. 45. Is it not a *famine fever which never comes near a well-laden table?
1877. Roberts, Handbk. Med. (ed. 3), I. 132. Relapsing fever prevails generally during periods of famine, and has hence been called famine-fever.
1822. Byron, Werner, I. i. 119. This … *famine-hollow’d brow.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xxi. 206. These *famine-pinched wanderers of the ice.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Wealth, Wks. (Bohn), II. 75. Bread rose to *famine-prices.
1891. Pall Mall G., 30 Sept., 7/1. Russia at present is … anxious to muzzle the *famine wolf.
