ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED1.] In senses of the vb. Also in comb., as famished-looking adj.
a. 1450. Knt. de la Tour (1868), 28. It was not wel done that the dogges were fedde and made so fatte, and the pore pepille so lene and famisshed for hunger.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., I. ii. 7.
Otherwhiles, the famisht English, like pale Ghosts, | |
Faintly besiege vs one houre in a moneth. |
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Tracts, i. 59. That passage of Job, wherein he complains that poor and half famished fellows despised him, is of greater difficulty.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. 167. The famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged.
1828. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. III. (1863), 467. A long, lean, famished-looking boy.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), III. xii. 138. Some rode on famished horses.
fig. 1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Longing, i.
With sick & famisht eyes | |
To thee my sighs, my tears ascend. |
1877. Bryant, Poems, The Third of November, 1861, vi. Howling, like a wolf, flies the famished northern blast.