starve: [OE] Starve means etymologically ‘be stiff’ – it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *star-, *ster- ‘be stiff’, which also produced English starch, stare, etc. The ‘stiffness’ of a corpse led to its use for ‘die’ – a meaning which it retains in the related German sterben and Dutch sterven. In English, however, from the 12th century onwards, starve gradually narrowed down in meaning to ‘dying from cold’ (which survived into the modern era in northern dialects) and ‘dying from hunger’. => starch, stare, stork
