


The clue to its meaning comes from the old Latin words rapīna meaning to plunder and rapere meaning to seize, and the Old French ravineux.

This word is used when you are extremely hungry, not just feeling peckish. It comes from the German word pekken meaning to jab with the beak – like a bird pecking at the ground for a small mouthful of food.
#IM HUNGRY NOW FULL#
Peckish is a word you use when you feel like having something small to eat, a snack, or a ‘ nibble’, rather than a full meal. It’s not quite lunch time but you’re a little hungry – this is when you’re feeling peckish. You had breakfast at 8am, now you’re at work and it’s 11am. He looked just like Buddy Holly, played a Fender Stratocaster, and made enough money in the pop charts to make sure he’d never go hungry – but his name does rhyme with ‘starving’ – and that’s exactly what Hank Marvin means in Cockney slang. Hank Marvin was a guitarist for The Shadows, a famous British band in the 1960s. Now here’s a way of saying hungry that you’ll hear more in London than anywhere else, because it’s an example of Cockney Rhyming Slang. This word might sound dramatic but people use it every day to describe normal to strong feelings of hunger – a great example of an English word whose meaning has softened over the years. However, when people use this word in English today they’re rarely so hungry that they’re at death’s door. To be famished means that you are suffering from extreme hunger and it’s also used to describe someone who has starved to death. It comes from the Old English famisshe and famen meaning to starve. This is a word to use when you’re feeling very hungry – so hungry your stomach is growling. They’ve left us a rich legacy of words that we can use to express ourselves when our bellies start to rumble… These words wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have a need for them and it reminds us that our ancestors really did struggle with hunger, poverty and famine. The fact that so many words exist to describe states of hunger not only makes our language richer, it’s also a reminder of our less fortunate past and our struggle to survive. Some of these words and phrases are comical, many involve references to animals and some have origins that will definitely surprise you. They describe all different kinds of hunger, from extreme forms of hunger like starvation, right through to feeling like you’d just like a small snack. The English language has a surprisingly large number of words that mean ‘hungry’. – a strong desire or craving: a hunger for affection – the discomfort, weakness, or pain caused by a prolonged lack of food
