If you are famished, you are extremely hungry — not a little peckish, but ready to eat almost anything. It is spoken, a bit colourful, and a little old-fashioned; many younger speakers say starving instead, even though starving also names a much darker real state. You hear it at the table: “I’m famished — when do we eat?” It is about a person and a meal, almost never about a country. Though actually, it sits next to famine: both go back to hunger, but famished is the everyday dramatic feeling, and famine is the disaster. As a verb form it is the -ed of an older verb famish, “to starve,” which you will hardly meet now except inside this adjective.