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Ill-fed   Listen
adjective
ill-fed  adj.  Not getting adequate food.
Synonyms: underfed, undernourished.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ill-fed" Quotes from Famous Books



... merely because he was a big man with a handsome, dark face, but because he looked, somehow, as if he had been born to command armies, and as if no one would think of disobeying him. Yet Marco had never seen him command any one, and they had always been poor, and shabbily dressed, and often enough ill-fed. But whether they were in one country or another, and whatsoever dark place they seemed to be hiding in, the few people they saw treated him with a sort of deference, and nearly always stood when they were in his presence, unless he ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin football, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... in the shelter of the landing ladder and sipped a second mug of the white liquor, Lord became slowly aware of something else. Divested of their distinguishing uniforms, he and his crew seemed puny and ill-fed beside the natives. If physique were any index to the sophistication of a culture—but that was a ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox

... down the track, I reviewed the past winter months, the long days and evenings spent at my desk in the stuffy little lodgings to which I was limited by my narrow income, interrupted frequently by invasions on various pretexts of the ill-fed chambermaid, who insisted on telling me her woes, or by my neighbor from the next room, the good little spinster, who always knocked to ask if she might heat a flat-iron at my grate when I was in the midst of a bit of minute description. She would sit down, too, would poor withered Miss ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... who heard all this in another spirit. The ill-fed populace had long ago become ready for any change which might benefit their stomachs, and the name of Totila was to them significant of all they lacked under the Greeks. 'Let the Goth come quickly!' passed from mouth to mouth wherever the vulgar durst speak what they thought. Among ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... "they have about as much courage as a frog has hair on his belly." The Russian army, disconcerted by the unexpected resistance of the Swedes, ill-prepared for resistance, ill-commanded, ill-lodged, and ill-fed, was already demoralized to the last extent. The arrival of Charles caused a panic, and from that panic Peter, the most impressionable of men, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... columns. Too weak to conduct forward operations, they were held in check before Silistria, Varna and Shumla. The Russian transport service, none too good at best, collapsed under the threefold strain. The ill-fed soldiers wasted away by thousands. At length Homer Brionis, the commandant of Shumla, took advantage of the weakness of his besiegers. On September 24 he broke out of Shumla and marched to the relief of Varna. The Czar, notwithstanding ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... The two strands of life ran across the web of London, the strand of Johnson iron-gray, the strand of Garrick gleaming gold. Through long years Johnson hid in dingy courts and alleys, ill-clothed, ill-fed, an uncouth Apollo in the service of Admetus Cave and his kind, while the marvellous actor was climbing daily higher and higher on the ladder of an actor's fame, the friend of the wealthy, the favored of the great, the admired, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... masters, arising out of an increased prudence in same, which has been occasioned by stopping the importations, yet it is true, that not only many of the former continue to be ill-treated by the latter, but that all may be so ill-treated, if the latter be so disposed. They may be ill-fed, hard-worked, ill-used, and wantonly and barbarously punished. They may be tortured, nay even deliberately and intentionally killed without the means of redress, or the punishment of the aggressor, so long as the evidence of a Negro is not valid ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson

... one subject of standing dispute between Toby and his master. Toby was a kind-hearted lad, and hated to see the horses over-worked, ill-fed, and badly used. He was always remonstrating with his master about it, and thereby bringing down upon himself his master's wrath and abuse. Augustus cared nothing for the comfort or welfare of those under him. To get as much work as possible out of them, and to make as much gain ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... the ill-fed and neglected, usually developing in early childhood, and persisting throughout life. It is extremely rare, even in its milder types, in this country. Clinically and pathologically it bears some resemblance ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... appetite of a schoolboy; how to satisfy his natural cravings, therefore, must have been almost as difficult a problem as that of obtaining work. The rigours of an Austrian winter, too, added not a little to his miseries, ill-fed and thinly clad as he was, but still he struggled on, hopeful that the advent of spring would bring ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... avarice was too extravagant for current belief. It was even alleged that she had been known to carry the luggage of guests to their rooms, that she might anticipate the usual porter's gratuity. She denied herself the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorly clad, she was ill-fed—but the hotel was ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Oxenford, Chaucer says, he "loked holwe, and thereto soberly." Mr Horne needlessly adds "ill-fed." Chaucer says— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... different branches of the ruling family as maids and valets. In a well-to-do Filipino family of ten or twelve children, there will be a child servant for every child in the house. The little servants are ill-fed creatures (for the Filipinos themselves are merciless in what they exact and parsimonious in what they give), trained at seven or eight years of age to look after the room, the clothing, and to be at the beck and call of another ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... attaining wealth; privations and misery were only experienced by good citizens. Each proclamation of the English was supported by their seductions, their riches, and the intrigues of the Tories. Whilst a numerous garrison lived sumptuously at New York, some hundreds of men, ill-clothed and ill-fed, wandered upon the shores of the Hudson. The army of Philadelphia, freshly recruited from Europe, abundantly supplied with everything they could require, consisted of eighteen thousand men: that of Valley-Forge was successively reduced to five ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... Scotland was considerably in the rear of Ireland. It was a country almost without agriculture, without mines, without fisheries, without shipping, without money, without roads. The people were ill-fed, half barbarous, and habitually indolent. The colliers and salters were veritable slaves, and were subject to be sold together with the estates to which ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... growing weaker and weaker. His force had dwindled to a mere phantom of an army. His soldiers, ill-fed, half-clothed, unpaid, were fearfully overworked. He was obliged to concentrate all the troops at his disposal around Antwerp. Diversions against Ostend, operations in Friesland and Gelderland, although most desirable, had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... her," thought Angelica. "She is ill-fed, overworked, and weakly, while I am pampered and strong; but there is no rational way for me to do it. If I took her home with me and kept her in luxurious idleness for the rest of her days, as I could very well afford ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... The slender, ill-fed child hurriedly filled the brass vessels, knowing that abuse awaited her late return. Raising the huge jars to her head, she hastened to her house—a home she never knew. The sister-in-law met the little thing with violent abuse, and bade her prepare the morning meal. The child was ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... toady the rich and uphold the unjust system. My friends, it is these rich capitalists and landowners who oppress the people. What right have they, I ask again, to their wealth, when the inmates of this house, and thousands of others, are ill-fed and in rags? If I had my way," (Hear! hear! and a laugh), "I would distribute the wealth of the country, and have no poor people at all such as I see before me—such as this poor fellow," (laying his hand on the shoulder of the outrageously ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... on the Delaware were of foremost importance at this period of gloom and darkness. The British were in possession of Philadelphia, the Capital of "the rebels." Washington's men were suffering the distress of Valley Forge, ill-fed and scantily clothed. Barry was destroying forage and capturing supplies. General Wayne was operating around Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey in a ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin

... the Gospel narrative of Lazarus—the wretchedly clothed, ill-fed, diseased mendicant—who inspired loathing in the eyes and nostrils of the delicately nurtured, sensual men who flocked past his unlovely form to the banquets of the rich glutton at whose palace gate he lay, my thoughts fly at once to my old friend, Archie the penitent, and my prayers ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... the Baron had as little on him as decency would allow. The Yorkshireman feeling his man rather roll at the start, again cautioned him to take it easy, and after a dozen yards he got into a capital run, and though the lanky Baron came tearing along like an ill-fed greyhound, Mr. Jorrocks had full two yards to spare, and ran past the soldier, who stood with his cap on his bayonet as a winning-post, amid the applause of his backers, the yells of his opponents, and the general ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... their abode among those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for them. Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated garbage. Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated. Their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. The London of 1665 was such a city. The cities of the East, where plague has an enduring dwelling, are such cities. We, in later times, have learned somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial improvement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... of the tin imitations that preside over London. I do not think my wife very well; but I am in hopes she will now have a little rest. It has been a hard business, above all for her; we lived four months in the hurricane season in a miserable house, overborne with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual rain, beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the evenings; and then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things go better now; the back of the work is broken; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... what class do these poor starving children belong? A. The working class.—Q. Is it not the working class which creates all wealth? A. Yes.—Q. Do the rich trouble about the poor children of London who are ill-fed and clothed? A. No.—Q. What is a pauper? A. One who lives upon others, while being able to work?—Q. Are the rich class able to work? A. Yes; because they are well cared for when young and grow up strong?—Q. Do they work? A. No; they consider it menial and ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... of temper by this time, and, but that he looked so miserable and ill-fed, I would have rattled his ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... when that eviscerated city was merely in process of disembowelment, before alluvial mining gave way to quartz-crushing, when the individual had a chance, if a very vague one, of sudden and delightful fortune. The Ballarat blacks were a scaly lot, to talk of them like ill-fed hogs, as men were wont to do. They dwined and dwindled, as natives will before the resources of civilisation: the bloodthirsty ones got killed out; the rumthirsty ones died out; the wild corroboree ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... crushed on the rocks beneath out of all semblance of humanity, so that there was not one whole corpse found for burial. Then there were minute details of the pitiable condition of the German armies ever since they had invaded France: the ill-fed, poorly equipped soldiers were actually falling from inanition and dying by the roadside of horrible diseases. Another article told how the king of Prussia had the diarrhea, and how Bismarck had broken his leg in jumping from the window of an inn where a party of zouaves ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... now, Rome was an enchantress of mighty and wonderful power, with her damp, and mud, and mould, her ill-fed, ill-housed populace, her ruins of old glory rising dim and ghostly amid her palaces of to-day. With all her awful secrets of rapine, cruelty, ambition, injustice,—with her foul orgies of unnatural crime,—with the very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... University, sophist or questionist, bachelor or master, was entitled to a share of the benefit. This wide charity cannot have met with unanimous approval. Large as the fund was, it would hardly have sufficed for the needs of every ill-clothed and ill-fed scholar; and, in the distribution of the money, it would be only in accord with common experience of human nature if an enterprising official, whose eagerness had outstripped his resources, should be preferred to some pinched, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... many illegible hieroglyphs; some of them young and bedizened with tinsel jewelry and flashy clothing; not a few of them middle-aged, wan, dispirited and bearing upon their hips bundles wrapped in faded shawls, from which came occasionally that most distressing of sounds, the wail of an ill-fed and unloved infant, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... good old Hector on the other side of the door, and you don't imagine you are really throwing dust in his eyes do you? . . . good old Hector with his threadbare livery and his ill-fed belly. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... his father's farm, he was sent away at ten years of age to a cheap Yorkshire boarding-school, similar in character to the Dotheboys Hall described by Dickens many years after in "Nicholas Nickleby." Five miserable years he spent at that school, ill-fed, harshly treated, badly taught, without once going home, and permitted to write to his parents only once in three months. In after life he could not bear to speak of his life at school; nor was he ever quite the genial and happy man he might have been if those ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... come. This generous reply he told to the lady, and she let others know, and the result was that, although late in the season, more than sixty children from the poorest neighborhoods of Brooklyn—pale, deformed, city-worn, and ill-fed—spent a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various



Words linked to "Ill-fed" :   malnourished, undernourished



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