as in starving
not eating enough food or not eating enough healthy food; poorly nourished
The malnourished children were slowly nursed back to health.
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Recent Examples of malnourished
Some of the most malnourished children are in the few hospitals still operating in Gaza, where doctors are scrambling for supplies of special therapeutic milks.
—
Dawoud Abu Alkas, USA Today, 23 Aug. 2025
Doctors and nurses in Gaza in recent weeks have seen rising numbers of visibly malnourished patients.
—Sam Mednick, Chicago Tribune, 23 Aug. 2025
Restrictions from Israel and now the United States also affected how the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an international organization with a local chapter in Milwaukee, can get medical supplies into the region and provide treatment to children who are malnourished or injured in the war.
—Bridget Fogarty, jsonline.com, 22 Aug. 2025
Many people — especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities — may be unable to evacuate.
—Sarah Ferguson, Forbes.com, 22 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for malnourished
Dawoud Abu Alkas, USA Today, 23 Aug. 2025
Doctors and nurses in Gaza in recent weeks have seen rising numbers of visibly malnourished patients.
—Sam Mednick, Chicago Tribune, 23 Aug. 2025
Restrictions from Israel and now the United States also affected how the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an international organization with a local chapter in Milwaukee, can get medical supplies into the region and provide treatment to children who are malnourished or injured in the war.
—Bridget Fogarty, jsonline.com, 22 Aug. 2025
Many people — especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities — may be unable to evacuate.
—Sarah Ferguson, Forbes.com, 22 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for malnourished
Recent Examples of Synonyms for malnourished
Adjective
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Factors like immune health and body fat play a role; if someone is already undernourished, their health will deteriorate quickly, after a few days without food.—
Angela Haupt,
Time,
31 July 2025
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Sticking with the example of hunger, the UN’s target number 2 out of 17, the inception of the Sustainable Development Goals came at a time when progress on the topic was good and only 552 million people in the world were estimated to be undernourished in 2014, down from 789 million in 2005.—
Katharina Buchholz,
Forbes.com,
31 July 2025
Adjective
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The freezing rain then traps lichen under a thick layer of ice where hungry reindeer can’t reach the food, according to Anna Skarin, a reindeer husbandry expert and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences professor.—
Jason Ma,
Fortune,
7 Sep. 2025
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These facilities, dense with high-performance servers and cooling systems, are among the most power-hungry assets in the country.—
Robert Rapier,
Forbes.com,
7 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Malnourished.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/malnourished. Accessed 14 Sep. 2025.
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