the.com/famine
the one disaster where there's usually enough food, just not enough fairness
means A severe, widespread shortage of food causing mass hunger, starvation, and often death across a region or population.
from From Latin 'fames,' meaning hunger, which gave Old French 'famine' before crossing into Middle English. The root 'fames' is the same hunger that lurks in 'famished' and even in 'famelic,' a rare word for ravenous appetite — a single Latin pang of emptiness branching into a small family of starving words.
- rarely shortage
- Most famines stem from politics, not crop failure
- Nobel insight
- Sen proved no famine struck a functioning democracy
- Irish export
- Food left Ireland by ship during its potato famine
- official term
- Declaring famine requires precise death and hunger thresholds
- genetic ghost
- Starvation alters descendants' DNA expression for generations
bengal famine 1943 — british india: 2-3 million deaths from starvation and disease
irish potato famine — ireland 1845-1852: 1 million dead, 1 million emigrated
holodomor ukraine 1932 — soviet union: 3.5-5 million deaths from forced collectivization