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Vehement or urgent desire; longing for; beseeching. A succession of cravings and satiety. L'Estrange. -- Crav"ing*ly, adv. -- Crav"ing*ness, n.

Fixed and strong desire; esp. natural desire; a craving; an eager appetite. They had a strong appetency for reading. Merivale.

ecial service, duty, or mission. The daughter of the King of France, On serious business, craving quick despatch, Importunes personal conference. Shak. What business has the tortoise among the clouds L'Estrange.

To desire strongly; to feel an insatiable longing; as, a craving appetite. Once one may crave for love. Suckling.

ontrivance; quick at inventing expedients; expert; as, a dexterous manager. Dexterous the craving, fawning crowd to quit. Pope.

A morbid an uncontrollable craving (often periodic) for drink, esp. for alcoholic liquors; also improperly used to denote acute and chronic alcoholism.

speedy performance, as of business; prompt execution; diligence; haste. Serious business, craving quick dispatch. Shak. To carry his scythe . . . with a sufficient dispatch through a sufficient space. Paley.

To fill to satiety; to satisfy fully the desire or craving of; to satiate; to sate; to cloy. His faithful heart, a bloody sacrifice, Torn from his breast, to glut the tyrant's eyes. Dryden. The realms of nature and of art were ransacked to glut the wonder, lust, and ferocity of a degraded populace. C. Kingsley. To glut…

An uneasy sensation occasioned normally by the want of food; a craving or desire for food.

Showing hunger or a craving desire; voracious. The cruel, hungry foam. C. Kingsley. Cassius has a lean and hungry look. Shak.

A gaping after; eager desire; craving. [R.] Bp. Hall.

Eager; craving; urged by desire; eager to taste or enjoy; greedy. "The lickerish palate of the glutton." Bp. Hall.

To feel a strong or morbid desire or craving; to wish for something with eagerness; -- followed by an infinitive, or by after or for. I long to see you. Rom. i. 11. I have longed after thy precepts. Ps. cxix. 40. I have longed for thy salvation. Ps. cxix. 174. Nicomedes, longing for herrings, was supplied with fresh on…

An eager desire; a craving; a morbid appetite; an earnest wish; an aspiration. Put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me. Shak.

Licentious craving; sexual appetite. Milton.

The quality or state of being right; right relation. The craving for rightness with God. J. C. Shairp.

A sensation of dryness in the throat associated with a craving for liquids, produced by deprivation of drink, or by some other cause (as fear, excitement, etc.) which arrests the secretion of the pharyngeal mucous membrane; hence, the condition producing this sensation. Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up ou…

plovers." Spenser. The hounds were . . . staying their coming, but with a whining accent, craving liberty. Sir P. Sidney. Dost thou come here to whine Shak.