different between athirst vs thirst

English

Etymology

Old English ofþyrst, past participle of ofþyrstan (“to smart from thirst”), equivalent to a- (“of”, Etymology 8) +? thirst (verb).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?????st/
• Rhymes: -??(?)st

Adjective

athirst (comparative more athirst, superlative most athirst)

1. (archaic) Thirsty.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 1,^[1]

     Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

2. (figuratively) Eager or extremely desirous (for something).
   • 1817, John Keats, “Sonnet (Written on a blank space at the end of Chaucer’s tale of ‘The Floure And The Leafe’”^[2]

     I, that forever feel athirst for glory,

     Could at this moment be content to lie

     Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings

     Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

   • 1878, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Ave Atque Vale (In Memory of Charles Baudelaire)” in Poems and Ballads, Second Series, Stanza IV,^[3]

     O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,

     That were athirst for sleep and no more life

     And no more love, for peace and no more strife!

   • 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, translated from the Bengali by the author, 5,^[4]

     I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.

     My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.

Anagrams

• ratshit, rattish, tartish, tirthas

English

Etymology

From Middle English thirst, thurst, from Old English þurst, from Proto-West Germanic *þurstu, from Proto-Germanic *þurstuz, from Proto-Indo-European *ters- (“dry”).

Germanic cognates include Old High German thurst, Middle High German durst, German Durst, Old Saxon thurst, Old Dutch thursti, Middle Dutch dorst, dorste, Dutch dorst, Old Norse þorsti (Swedish törst, Icelandic þorsti, Danish tørst, Norwegian tørst). Indo-European cognates include Ancient Greek ???????? (térsomai), Albanian djersë (“sweat”), Sanskrit ?????? (t????, “desire; thirst”), Sanskrit ??????? (t???yati), Latin terra.

Pronunciation

• enPR: thûrst
• (UK) IPA^(key): /???st/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??st/
• Rhymes: -??(?)st

Noun

thirst (countable and uncountable, plural thirsts)

1. A sensation of dryness in the throat associated with a craving for liquids, produced by deprivation of drink, or by some other cause (such as fear, excitement, etc.) which spots the secretion of the pharyngeal mucous membrane
2. The condition producing the sensation of thirst.
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

     "We haven't one chance for life in a hundred thousand if we don't find food and water upon Caprona. This water coming out of the cliff is not salt; but neither is it fit to drink, though each of us has drunk. It is fair to assume that inland the river is fed by pure streams, that there are fruits and herbs and game. Shall we lie out here and die of thirst and starvation with a land of plenty possibly only a few hundred yards away? We have the means for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly to utilize this means?"

3. (figuratively) A want and eager desire (for something); a craving or longing.

   a thirst for gold

4. (slang) sexual lust

Synonyms

• (figuratively): craving, longing

Derived terms

• bloodthirst
• thirst-quenching
• thirsty

Translations

See also

• hunger

Verb

thirst (third-person singular simple present thirsts, present participle thirsting, simple past and past participle thirsted)

1. (intransitive) To be thirsty.

   • The people thirsted there for water.

2. (intransitive, usually followed by "for") To desire vehemently.

   • My soul thirsteth for […] the living God.

   • Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Translations

Further reading

• thirst in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• thirst in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• T-shirt, t-shirt, thrist