_Starvation, an Americanism._--Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless
quite true that this word, now unhappily so common on every tongue, as
representing the condition of so many of the sons and daughters of the
sister lands of Great Britain and Ireland, is not to be found in _our own_
English dictionaries; neither in Todd's _Johnson_, published in 1826, nor
in Richardson's, published ten years later, nor in Smart's--Walker
remodelled--published about the same time as Richardson's. It is Webster
who has the credit of importing it from his country into this; and in a
supplement issued a few years ago, Mr. Smart adopted it as "a _trivial_
word, but in very common, and at present good use."
What a lesson might Mr. Trench read us, that it should be so!
Our older poets, to the time of Dryden, used the compound "hunger-starved."
We now say _starved_ with cold. Chaucer speaks of Christ as "He that
_starf_ for our redemption," of Creseide "which well nigh _starf_ for
_feare_;" Spenser, of arms "which doe men in _bale_ to sterve." (See
_Starve_ in Richardson.) In the _Pardoneres Tale_, v. 12799:
"Ye (yea), _sterve_ he shall, and that in lesse while
Than thou wilt gon a pas not but a mile;
This _poison_ is so strong and violent."
And again, v. 12822:
"It happed him
To take the botelle there the poison was,
And dronke; and gave his felau drinke also
For which anone they _storven_ bothe two."
Mr. Tyrwhit explains, "to die, to perish" and the general meaning of the
word was, "to die, or cause to die, to perish, to destroy."