STARVATION  , the

state of being deprived of the essentials of nutrition, particularly of food, the suffering of the extremities of hunger and also of cold (see HUNGER AND THIRST) . The word is an invented hybrid, attributed, according to the accepted story, to Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, who used it in a parliamentary debate on American matters in 1775 and gained thereby the nickname of " Starvation Dundas " (see H . Walpole's Letters, ed . Cunningham, viii . 3o; and Notes and Queries no . 225) . The English word " to starve " meant originally " to die," as in O . Eng. steorfan, Du. sterven, Ger . 'sterben, but was particularly applied to death from hunger or cold .