Exsiccated/Exsiccation - was trying to think of a single English term that could be the equivalent of starvation; like if someone was dying of thirst, but I felt parched isn’t weighted enough to fulfill the gravity of it.
In latin exsiccare meant to dry up completely, so that’s how we got here I guess.
Thoughts? Is there a term I have forgotten that fits what I was looking for?
I might be a little late to the thread but how about “parched”?
The scientific term is Turbo Parched
Is parched itself not strong enough to fit the bill? Nonnative speaker here.
I just never miss never miss an opportunity to slap turbo onto something, as a rule.
No, parched is a light to moderate thirst.
I don’t think Exsiccated/Exsiccation is cromulent enough. Doesn’t really embiggen dying of thirst to me.
The old English word for this was forthirst. It was a direct counterpart to the modern “starve.” But it fell out of use because it happened so rarely in the British isles. I don’t know Arabic but I’m willing to bet they have a word for it…
Ah, like german verdursten!
I always find it cool when you can discover equivalent words in other languages like this.
I think that’s where English got it from actually.
Strictly theres ‘dehydration’, though it does lack gravitas of ‘starving’. ‘Parched’ also exists but I feel like that falls in with ‘thirsty’ as a “Yea I want water but I’m not dying” situation.
‘Dessicated’ or ‘dessication’ could be used descriptively as it means dried out.
If you saw someone who staved to death, you may say their remains were emaciated; they died of starvation.
If you saw someone who died from lack of water, you may say their remains are desiccated; they died of dehydration.
‘I feel dessicated’ and ‘I feel dehydrated’ both flow fairly well to me, though I’d feel more bougie saying the former unless I was analogizing in the same sentence
I’m dying of thirsting. *bites lip
Eskimos have so many words for snow, I’m not surprised English lacks a word for dying of thirst but have about two dozen words ways of describing how wet you are.
Sprinkled, damp, moist, wet, soaked, drenched, sodden, inundated
English has far more words for snow than the Inuit languages have. And as others have said dehydrate and it’s conjugations serve this purpose in English, with dessicate and it’s conjugations for the remains.
No single word im aware of, exsiccation sounds cool.
My only speed bump is hyperbolically saying “Yes I’m exsiccating”, but that’s fine. Parched or dehydrated are technically correct, but don’t have the same punch as “starving”.
