esurient
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪˈsjʊə.ɹɪ.ənt/
ipa: /ɪˈʃʊə.ɹi.ənt/
ipa: /iː-/
ipa: /ɛ-/
ipa: /ə-/
ipa: /ɪˈsʊ.ɹi.ənt/
ipa: /ə-/
ipa: /-ˈzʊ-/
Forms: form: more esurient
form: most esurient
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin ēsurient, ēsurientem, from ēsuriēns (“hungering”), present participle of ēsuriō (“to be hungry, to hunger for something”), a desiderative verb from edō (“to eat”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁édti (“to eat”)) + -turiō (suffix indicating a desire for an action).
Senses: examples: text: So that (as I apprehend) theſe Famelick, Eſurient, and Sitient Spirits are not the Ferments product of Concoction in the Ventricle, but only incentives, ordained by nature to render us deſirous of Aliment, to repair the decaying frame of our Body.
ref: 1685, Samuel Collins, “Of the Serous Ferment of the Stomach”, in A Systeme Of Anatomy, Treating of the Body of Man, Beasts, Birds, Fish, Insects, and Plants. […], volumes I (Containing the Parts of the Lowest Apartiment of the Body of Man and Other Animals, &c.), in the Savoy [London]: Printed by Thomas Newcomb, →OCLC, book I, 2nd part (Of the Three Appartiments of Mans Body, […]), page 306:
text: Calcin'd Hartſhorn being a mere Terra damnata, wholly bereav'd of all Salts, muſt needs, as it boils in Water, imbibe the Salt of that Water, and leave its Pores empty and eſurient: And then that eſurient Water taken into our Viſcera and Veſſels, will greedily ſuck into it whatſoever Salts it finds, and will carry them out of the Body with it.
ref: 1719, Thomas Fuller, Pharmacopœia Extemporanea: Or, A Body of Medicines, […], 3rd edition, London: Printed for W. and J. Innys, […], →OCLC, page 158:
text: Nay, is it not cunning (couple it with an esurient character) the natural consequence of defective intellect? It is properly the vehement exercise of a short, poor vision; of an intellect sunk, bemired; which can attain to no free vision, otherwise it would lead the esurient man to be honest.
ref: 1833 August, [Thomas Carlyle], “Count Cagliostro: In Two Flights. Flight Last.”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume VIII, number XLIV, London: James Fraser […], →OCLC, page 147, column 1:
text: Caron Beaumarchais (or de Beaumarchais [Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais], for he got ennobled) had been born poor, but aspiring, esurient; with talents, audacity, adroitness; above all, with the talent for intrigue: a lean, but also tough indomitable man.
ref: 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Maurepas”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book II (The Paper Age), page 43:
text: That girl with her back to us who waits / For her man to come home for his tea / Will wait until the paint disintegrates / And ruined dikes admit the esurient sea; […]
ref: 1981, Derek Mahon, Courtyards in Delft (Gallery Books), Dublin: Gallery Press, →ISBN; quoted in The Recorder: A Journal of the American Irish Historical Society, New York, N.Y.: American Irish Historical Society, 1996, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 73:
text: I answered that such freedom would be worse than the vilest slavery, for it would leave me free to do nothing but grappel till death with clusterfist creditors and esurient Kirkists; […]
ref: 1983, Alasdair Gray, “Sir Thomas’s Logopandocy”, in Unlikely Stories, Mostly, Edinburgh: Canongate, →ISBN; republished as Unlikely Stories, Mostly (Canongate Classics; 81), Edinburgh: Canongate, 1997, →ISBN, paragraph 149, page 180:
synonyms: word: cormorant
word: edacious
word: esurient
word: gluttonous
word: gutfoundered
word: hungry as a hog
word: insatiable
word: lupine
word: pantagruelian
word: rapacious
word: ravening
word: ravenous
word: voracious
glosses: Very greedy or hungry; ravenous; (figuratively) avid, eager.
Derived terms: esurience
esuriently
Related terms: esurine