Hungry

How to spell hungry

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hungry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hungry mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling or showing a need or strong desire for food.
2. adjectiveHaving a strong desire or craving for something other than food, such as success or attention.

Hungry in a sentence

• The children were hungry by the time dinner was served.

• The young manager was hungry for promotion and worked late every night.

• He felt hungry after skipping lunch to finish the report.

• Investors remained hungry for any sign of higher returns.

Where does hungry come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hungry traces back to the Old English adjective hungrig, formed from the noun hungor, meaning 'a strong desire for food' or 'a painful want of it'. That noun has solid Germanic roots, with close cousins in Old Norse hungr, Old High German hungar, and modern German Hunger, all pointing back to a shared ancestral sense of craving or empty need. The spelling drifted over the centuries: the older -ig adjective ending softened into the modern -y, and the noun's 'hunger' kept its own form, which is why the adjective drops that final 'e' and slots in -ry instead. By the time of Middle English it had settled close to its present shape. The word has long carried a figurative sense too, describing a keen appetite for things other than food, such as power or success, a metaphor that was already current in medieval writing.

How the word is built

• hung- (from Old English hungor: hunger)
• -ry (adjectival ending, from -ig)