Famine 504 Absolutely Essential Words Lesson 13
/ˈfæm.ɪn/ (noun)
extreme food shortage leading to illness or death, drought, deprivation, shortfall, deficiency of something, scantiness, dearth, poverty, short supply, food scarcity, starvation, want, lack, paucity, insufficiency
The ‘Great Leap Forward’-famine in China from 1959-61 was the single largest famine in history in terms of absolute numbers of deaths. Excess mortality estimates vary hugely, but based on our midpoint estimates, it cost more than double the number of lives than any other famine. Our table of famine mortality estimates is available here. This chart shows the estimated changes to birth and death rates during and after this famine period, in addition to the effect of these changes on overall population size. Alongside a significant jump in death rates, there was also a large fall in births — a trend very typical of famines.
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/
Antonym: abundance
