Exsiccated/Exsiccation - was trying to think of a single English term that could be the equivalent of starvation; like if someone was dying of thirst, but I felt parched isn’t weighted enough to fulfill the gravity of it.
In latin exsiccare meant to dry up completely, so that’s how we got here I guess.
Thoughts? Is there a term I have forgotten that fits what I was looking for?
Dehydration?
I was thinking if someone drank the night before I would define them as dehydrated, not dying of thirst.
If someone hasn’t drank in two days they are dehydrated.
This brings home what thirst truly is.
I feel like the hungry -> starving process is just a longer version of the thirsty -> dehydrated process
Does it make a difference that starvation takes longer than dehydration, but both result in eventual death? It takes weeks to die of starvation, it takes days to die of dehydration. Just because one manifests over a longer period of time and has a longer recovery period doesn’t make the other less deadly
Also, I’m not sure if there are poisons a person can ingest that will strip vital nutrients and push a person into the starvation state (and if the poison does strip vital nutrients, the poisoned person already has bigger problems). But consuming alcohol will push a person into the dehydrated state without killing them.
What if you compared the effects of dehydration and starvation as they progress, like, mild -> acute -> severe -> terminal?
- Mild dehydration (day 1) kidneys conserve water, headache, fatigue
- Mild starvation (week 1) blood sugar drops, liver increases glycogen breakdown, irritability, difficult to concentrate.
Something like that?
This post was brought to you by ADHD, and quite possibly Autism
Dehydration
You don’t necessarily die from starvation the same way you don’t necessarily die from dehydration, but you can die from either of them.Strictly theres ‘dehydration’, though it does lack gravitas of ‘starving’. ‘Parched’ also exists but I feel like that falls in with ‘thirsty’ as a “Yea I want water but I’m not dying” situation.
‘Dessicated’ or ‘dessication’ could be used descriptively as it means dried out.
If you saw someone who staved to death, you may say their remains were emaciated; they died of starvation.
If you saw someone who died from lack of water, you may say their remains are desiccated; they died of dehydration.
‘I feel dessicated’ and ‘I feel dehydrated’ both flow fairly well to me, though I’d feel more bougie saying the former unless I was analogizing in the same sentence
The old English word for this was forthirst. It was a direct counterpart to the modern “starve.” But it fell out of use because it happened so rarely in the British isles. I don’t know Arabic but I’m willing to bet they have a word for it…
Ah, like german verdursten!
I always find it cool when you can discover equivalent words in other languages like this.
I think that’s where English got it from actually.
I might be a little late to the thread but how about “parched”?
I’m dying of thirsting. *bites lip
The scientific term is Turbo Parched
Is parched itself not strong enough to fit the bill? Nonnative speaker here.
No, parched is a light to moderate thirst.
I just never miss never miss an opportunity to slap turbo onto something, as a rule.
Thirstmaxxing.
Dehydration.
Starvation doesn’t necessarily imply death. Like you could be emaciated from starvation in prison, but still alive.
Yeah, I feel some of the terms got whittled down in severity over time. Kind of like you hear people say they electricuted themselves fairly often. Slowly it’s becoming not deadly, just a bit of a shock lol
*Typo, executed - > electricuted. Not sure I know anyone who said they executed themself and told be about it, haha
It also doesn’t strictly limited to food. You can be starved of oxygen. Why not water too?
Starvation of oxygen succinctly is suffocation
Google says there is none
The only way for this comment to be more German would be if it came laminated.
I don’t think Exsiccated/Exsiccation is cromulent enough. Doesn’t really embiggen dying of thirst to me.
Eskimos have so many words for snow, I’m not surprised English lacks a word for dying of thirst but have about two dozen words ways of describing how wet you are.
Sprinkled, damp, moist, wet, soaked, drenched, sodden, inundated
English has far more words for snow than the Inuit languages have. And as others have said dehydrate and it’s conjugations serve this purpose in English, with dessicate and it’s conjugations for the remains.
No single word im aware of, exsiccation sounds cool.
My only speed bump is hyperbolically saying “Yes I’m exsiccating”, but that’s fine. Parched or dehydrated are technically correct, but don’t have the same punch as “starving”.
I think proper newspeak would be ++thirsted
