Synonyms of famine

famine

noun

ˈfa-mən 

as in shortage

a falling short of an essential or desirable amount or number

there's a famine of good general practitioners in many rural areas

Synonyms & Similar Words

• shortage
• lack
• drought
• deficiency
• poverty
• scarcity
• deficit
• insufficiency
• absence
• paucity
• dearth
• inadequacy
• crunch
• undersupply
• failure
• scantiness
• lacuna
• pinch
• scarceness
• inadequateness
• omission
• want
• privation
• necessity
• meagerness
• poorness
• skimpiness
• need

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• abundance
• wealth
• sufficiency
• plenty
• amplitude
• opulence
• adequacy
• plenitude
• surplus
• excess
• oversupply
• overabundance
• surfeit
• bountifulness
• copiousness

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of famine

The catalyst for the uproar was the IPC's warning from August 2025 that famine had reached Gaza Governorate. — Beth Bailey, FOXNews.com, 13 Aug. 2026

As many as 25 million Chinese starved in the famine of 1906–7, an event that accelerated efforts to overthrow the Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty. — Caitlin Welsh, Foreign Affairs, 11 Aug. 2026

Founded in 1599, the Grassmayr Bell Foundry, in Innsbruck, western Austria, has survived wars, famines, epidemics and economic challenges. — Philipp Jenne, Fortune, 30 July 2026

In the early 1930s, the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty wrote stories denying the famine that Joseph Stalin’s forced-collectivization policies were causing in Ukraine and mocked journalists who reported the truth. — James Kirchick, The Atlantic, 29 July 2026