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Examples
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In fact it is the fever itself which will die [OE steorfan ` die '> ModE starve ` go hungry; die from hunger'] or fail to develop from the cold if the sufferer from the cold keeps up his strength by eating well.
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The Bike, torn between its roles, kept breaking down and having to be pushed through the ruts, while I starved (OE steorfan, ` to die ') wi' cold.
chained_bear commented on the word steorfan
"Deprivation rather than perpetual feasting was the norm, and much of the population was undernourished and dependent on food that could be foraged: the Old English word steorfan had not yet evolved into the word for 'starvation'; it simply meant 'to die'."
--Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 30
January 6, 2017