THIRST • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Thirst

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/θərst/ Listen

noun

Thirst n.

A sensation of dryness in the throat associated with a craving for liquids, produced by deprivation of drink, or by some other cause (as fear, excitement, etc.) which arrests the secretion of the pharyngeal mucous membrane; hence, the condition producing this sensation. "Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children... with thirst?" "With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded."

Fig.: A want and eager desire after anything; a craving or longing; usually with for, of, or after; as, the thirst for gold. "Thirst of worldy good." "The thirst I had of knowledge."

verb

Thirst v. t. (past & past part. thirsted; pres. part. thirsting)

To feel thirst; to experience a painful or uneasy sensation of the throat or fauces, as for want of drink. "The people thirsted there for water."

To have a vehement desire. "My soul thirsteth for... the living God."

Thirst v. t. To have a thirst for. (R.) "He seeks his keeper's flesh, and thirsts his blood."

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Etymology of 'Thirst'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Thirst" Quotes from Famous Books

... said in a hoarse whisper: "Our hour has come." The other whispered back: "Keep perfectly still and quiet." Breathless, the two watched the huge tiger descend the bank and pass majestically to the edge of the water where he stopped to quench his thirst. It seemed to the two trembling men that it took the Lord of the Jungle fully half an hour to drink his fill. Then, as slowly and impressively, the tiger turned from the stream and ascended the bank. When he reached the top he stood there, gazing ...

— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee

... far surpass the soils of the countries in which scientific agriculture was founded. As Hilgard has suggested, the historical datum that the majority of the most populous and powerful historical peoples of the world have been located on soils that thirst for water, may find its explanation in the intrinsic value of arid soils. From Babylon to the United States is a far cry; but it is one that shouts to the world the superlative merits of the soil that begs for water. To learn how ...

— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... time when books were few, and far too dear to be within reach of the many, and indeed when the number of those who could read must have been small, other means were of course taken to meet the thirst after knowledge; and the chief of these were the public readings in the theatre. This was not overlooked by Phila-delphus, who employed Hegesias to read Herodotus, and Hermophantus to read Homer, ...

— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... nostrils, outraged by a winter of city smells, as the salty, spray-laden breath of the marsh. It seems fairly to line the lungs with ozone. I know how grass-fed cattle feel at the smell of salt. I have the concentrated thirst of a whole herd when I catch that first whiff of the marshes after a winter, a year it may be, of unsalted inland air. The smell of it stampedes me. I gallop to meet it, and drink, drink, drink deep of it, my blood running redder with ...

— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... they had not quite recovered from their fright over the French Revolution. They were law abiding, moreover, and the blood and treasure which it had cost the nation to crush Napoleon had allayed in thousands of them the thirst for glory, and turned them into possibly humdrum but very sincere lovers of peace. Lord John's speech was an appeal to the average man in his strength and in his limitations, and men of cautious common-sense everywhere rejoiced that the young Whig—who was liked ...

— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

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