muerta de hambre

Question

I'm looking for the English rendition of the expresion "Muerta de Hambre". Not the literal translation "starving". But what that saying actually means. Based on context I believe it means that someone is begging. But I'm not sure. Can someone help me with this'

Answer 1

Actually qfreed, you saved part of the my tells that I accidentally erased while I was editing.

Answer 2

Thank you for the help. It was used in a derogatory manner. So it would be appropiate to translate it a beggar?

If the insult includes calling a person a beggar, then I guess you can...but actually it's just a flat out insult and then you can use all those adjectives that Yolii suggested: tacaño; miserable, etc. But if you are refering to the fact that the person is just poor or homeless, then muerto de hambre would be a very harsh word. It'd be better to call him un desamparado or pobre=poor person Pordiosero is harsh too. Limosnero is also a beggar but don't say it to his face.

Answer 3

It'd be better to call him un desamparado or pobre=poor person. Pordiosero is harsh too. Limosnero is also a beggar but don't say it to his face.

I see that you caught your own misspelling. Isn't this new editing capability face saving!

I screw up a lot anyway

Answer 4

It'd be better to call him un desamparado or pobre=poor person. Pordiosero is harsh too. Limosnero is also a beggar but don't say it to his face.

I see that you caught your own misspelling. Isn't this new editing capability face saving!

Answer 5

Off topic:

In English we often use dying of hunger to mean starving and dying from hunger to describe that the starvation actually resulted in the person's death. However, dying of hunger can also be used in the latter context.
When googling for muerte de hambre I noticed that it and muerta por hambre are used with strikingly similarity to their literal translations in English with muerta de hambre sometimes being used synonymously with muerta por hambre. Do the terms carry the same nuances as their literal English translations? (excluding distinct contexts like begging or homelessness, which by the way, I read no instances of. Is it a regional usage')

Follow up:
After reading Lazarus' post and changing the search to "muerto de hambre" I ran across the context being discussed in the original topic.
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php't=306667
I even saw a cute reference to a blog site (El Muerto de hambre") for people to publish their blog who are "homeless" in the context of not having their own homepage. Nice pun.

Answer 6

Thank you for the help. It was used in a derogatory manner. So it would be appropiate to translate it a beggar'

Answer 7

One word that comes to mind is pordiosera=beggar

Ella es una muerta de hambre. She is a beggar.
Un muerto de hambre in Spanish can mean that the person is homeless, has nothing to live on.

A homeless person = Una persona desamparada.

But, un muerto de hambre in Spanish can also be used besides the literal fact that the person has nothing to live on. It can be used as a derogatory expression.

Answer 8

Other uses for "muerta de hambre" that I know of in spanish is when someone else acuses somebody else of being "muerta de hambre"! for example: "Eres una muerta de hambre!" which means: "You are such a stingy person!" or tight or miserly which ever you want to use...lets see what others have to say