starveling

plural starvelings

1. One who is thin from lack of food.

   The lean, drawn starvelings in their dream-stupefied state were jealous of my well filled out, prosperous form.

   1924 July 28 [1923 August 28], Samuel Badisch Ornitz, “Fifth Period”, in Haunch Paunch and Jowl, eighth printing, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, section III, page 218

   1 more example

   If I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

comparative more starveling · superlative most starveling

1. Starving; suffering from starvation.

   As for the starveling rebels of our region, they soon began to reappear in town, more starved and abject, their blackened rags hanging on them[…]

   1979, V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

2. Meagre; scanty.

   [A] few meetings in the cape-broom, a starveling allowance of kisses in a very ill-advised publicity.

   1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 128