Hungry is an adjective describing a strong desire or need for food, or a figurative eagerness for something. It conveys a sense of physical appetite or intense motivation and is commonly used in everyday speech. Usage spans literal hunger, metaphorical drive, and idiomatic expressions like “hungry for success.”
"I skipped breakfast and I'm really hungry right now."
"She’s hungry for knowledge and spends hours reading."
"The team was hungry for victory after the hard-fought game."
"If you’re hungry for opportunity, you’ll make your own luck."
Hungry comes from the Old English word hungor, meaning 'torment or famine' from hungu (hung, to hunger) with the suffix -ry. By Middle English, hungren and hungrenge emerged, referring to the state of hunger. The modern form hungry appears around the 13th-14th centuries, influenced by German Hunger and Dutch hongeren; the sense broadened to metaphorical appetite beyond food. Over time, semantic shift expanded to describe intense desire beyond sustenance, such as a hungry mind or a hungry for success. The term parallels other appetite metaphors in Romance and Germanic languages, reflecting the universal link between bodily need and motivational drive. First known use in print is attested in medieval texts describing physical hunger, with later usage in literature as metaphor for ambition and eagerness. In contemporary English, hungry also appears in colloquial expressions and idioms, retaining both literal and figurative senses.
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Words that rhyme with "Hungry"
-rd) sounds
-es) sounds
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Pronounce as /ˈhʌŋ.ɡri/ in US/UK/AU. Start with the stressed syllable HUNG (/hʌŋ/), where /h/ is breathy, /ʌ/ is the open-mid back unrounded vowel, and /ŋ/ is the velar nasal. The second syllable is /ɡri/ with a hard g, and an unstressed or lightly stressed final /i/ depending on speed. For natural speech, connect the /ŋ/ and /ɡ/ smoothly, and avoid voicing the final vowel too loudly in fast speech.
Common errors: misplacing stress (putting pressure on the second syllable as in huNGRY), softening /ŋ/ into /n/ or /ŋg/ as in ‘hungree’. Another mistake is pronouncing /ɡ/ as a soft 'g' like in 'giraffe' or adding extra vowels (huh-ng-gree). Correction: keep primary stress on first syllable /ˈhʌŋ/ and clearly articulate /g/ before /ri/; ensure the final /ri/ is not reduced too much. Practice with slow, precise articulation: /ˈhʌŋ.ɡri/ and then speed up while preserving clarity.
In US/UK/AU, /ˈhʌŋ.ɡri/ is consistent, but vowel quality can vary: US often has a sharper /ʌ/ in /hʌŋ/, UK tends to a slightly more centralized /ʌ/ and crisper /ɡ/, AU can be more clipped with a raised /ɪ/ in some speakers. Rhoticity minimally affects /ɡri/; however, flapping or tapping of /t/ occurs in some phrases in US but not here. Overall, primary stress remains on the first syllable; rhythm and vowel length may vary with tempo.
The difficulty centers on the consonant cluster /ŋɡ/ and the rapid transition to /ri/, which can create a slight liasion and mouth-position challenge. The /ŋ/ demands a high tongue position with velar closure, while /ɡ/ requires a brief plosive release. Beginners may fuse /ŋ/ and /ɡ/ or mispronounce /ɡr/ as /ɡ/ followed by /ɹ/. Focus on separating /ŋ/ from /ɡ/ with a small pause, then smoothly glide into /ri/.
Is the final /ri/ truly pronounced as a separate syllable in fast speech, or is it often reduced? In slow speech, it’s /ɡri/ clearly two segments; in natural, rapid speech you’ll hear /ɡɹi/ with a less pronounced vowel and sometimes a slight vowel reduction on the /i/ depending on speaker; some transcriptions show a reduced /ɹi/. Listen for the crisp /ɡ/ onset before the /ri/ segment.
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