Basic Details
Word: Famine
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A severe shortage of food over a large area, which causes great hunger and often many deaths.
Synonyms: starvation, hunger, dearth
Antonyms: plenty, abundance, feast
How to Spell Famine
Syllables: fam - ine
Tricky part: The ending sounds like in but is spelt ine. The m is single.
Watch out for: famin, famene, fammine
Memory tip: Famine ends like examine and determine: the ine sounds like in, but the e stays on the end.
Usage Examples
Example 1: After three years without rain, famine spread across the region.
Example 2: Relief trains carried grain to the famine-hit districts.
Example 3: The book describes how villagers survived the famine by sharing every grain.
Fun Fact
The Bengal famine of 1943 is estimated to have killed between two and three million people.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word famine as used in the sentence:
Good rains turned the years of famine into a time when granaries overflowed.
a) starvation
b) hunger
c) dearth
d) abundance
Show answer
d) abundance. Abundance is plenty of food, with granaries full instead of empty.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is spelt correctly. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. famine 2. epidemik 3. drout 4. harvist
a) a long period without rain
b) the gathering of ripe crops
c) a severe shortage of food affecting many people
d) a disease spreading quickly among many people
Show answer
c) a severe shortage of food affecting many people. Drought keeps its ugh, harvest has an e, epidemic ends with c - famine is the only word without a mistake.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct letters to form a word:
fam_n_
a) e, e
b) i, a
c) a, e
d) i, e
Show answer
d) i, e. Famine ends in ine, like examine.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What can lead to a famine?
a) a cricket match being cancelled
b) a holiday
c) a new railway line
d) crops failing year after year
Show answer
d) crops failing year after year
2. A 'famine of ideas' means ____.
a) very few ideas
b) a clever idea
c) too many ideas
d) a hungry idea
Show answer
a) very few ideas
