English builds hunger out of three words — I am hungry — with be carrying the tense and an adjective carrying the meaning. Greek puts the whole thing in one verb: πεινάω. That single structural fact is worth more than any paradigm on this page, because it repeats across a whole family of bodily and emotional states, and because it makes the aorist behave in a way that surprises everyone.
Principal parts
| Slot | Forms | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Present | πεινάω/πεινώ, πεινάς, πεινάει/πεινά, πεινάμε, πεινάτε, πεινάνε/πεινούν | -άω (informal) beside -ώ (formal) |
| Imperfect | πεινούσα — also πείναγα (informal) | was hungry, over a stretch |
| Aorist | πείνασα, πείνασες, πεινάσαμε | -ασ-, with γέλασα and δίψασα |
| Dependent (θα, να) | πεινάσω | να μην πεινάσεις is very much alive |
| Perfect | έχω πεινάσει | |
| Gerund | πεινώντας | |
| Imperative | πείνα / πεινάστε — formable, but with no ordinary use | you cannot order somebody into a bodily state |
| Mediopassive | does not exist | no ×πεινιέμαι, no passive aorist |
| Participle | πεινασμένος, -η, -ο | hungry — a -μένος form with an active meaning |
| Learned participle | οι πεινώντες(literary, formal) | the hungry, of a population — see below |
The linking vowel -ασ- puts this verb with γελάω and διψάω on the Class Β aorist, and ×πείνησα is not a form. Note that πεινασμένος looks passive and is not: like κουρασμένος and νυσταγμένος it describes the subject's own state, not something done to them.
Πείνασα is a present in English
A state has no natural endpoint, so the perfective stem cannot package "being hungry" — it packages the moment the state started. Πείνασα therefore says I have got hungry, which is to say I am hungry now, and a learner who reads it as "I was hungry earlier" gets the sentence backwards.
Πείνασα ξαφνικά — υπάρχει τίποτα να τσιμπήσουμε;
pínasa ksafniká — ipárchi típota na tsimbísume;
I've suddenly got hungry — is there anything to nibble on?
Στο ταξίδι δεν πεινούσα καθόλου, μόνο διψούσα συνέχεια.
sto taksídhi dhen pinúsa kathólu, móno dhipsúsa sinéchia
On the journey I wasn't hungry at all, just constantly thirsty.
Έχω πεινάσει πολύ, ας παραγγείλουμε πριν κλείσει η κουζίνα.
écho pinási polí, as parangílume prin klísi i kuzína
I'm really hungry — let's order before the kitchen closes.
Πεινάω and Είμαι πεινασμένος
Both are good Greek. They are not, however, answers to the same question.
Πεινάς ή να περιμένουμε και τους άλλους;
pinás i na periménume ke tus álus;
Are you hungry, or shall we wait for the others too?
Άσε τον Νίκο ήσυχο μέχρι να φάει, είναι πεινασμένος και ανυπόφορος.
áse ton Níko ísicho méchri na fái, íne pinazménos ke anipóforos
Leave Nikos alone until he's eaten — he's hungry and unbearable.
Government
Nothing follows it. πεινάω takes no object at all, and degree adverbs carry the whole load — πεινάω πολύ / λίγο / φοβερά, or by comparison πεινάω σαν λύκος. The complement you may be looking for, hungry *for something*, attaches to the participle rather than to the verb; it is at the foot of this card.
The family this verb belongs to
Greek turns a whole set of states into verbs where English reaches for be plus an adjective. Meet them as one pattern rather than seven separate facts — and once you have, the temptation to build them with είμαι disappears on its own.
| Greek verb | English |
|---|---|
| πεινάω / διψάω | be hungry / thirsty |
| κρυώνω / ζεσταίνομαι | be cold / be hot |
| νυστάζω | be sleepy |
| βαριέμαι | be bored |
| βιάζομαι | be in a hurry |
| φοβάμαι | be afraid |
The sibling card is διψάω, and the wider English-to-Greek mismatch — including the ones Greek builds with έχω, like έχω δίκιο — is on have and be idioms.
Going hungry, and hungry for
Beyond the sensation, the verb carries the social meaning: to go hungry, to be destitute. It is the verb of the news bulletin and the political argument, and it is intransitive there too.
Πεινάει ο κόσμος και αυτοί συζητάνε ακόμα για τα επιδόματα.
pinái o kózmos ke aftí sizitáne akóma ya ta epidhómata
People are going hungry and they're still debating the benefits.
The figurative reading goes through the participle, with για: πεινασμένος για κάτι is hungry for it in the ambitious sense.
Φέτος η ομάδα είναι πεινασμένη για τίτλους, το βλέπεις στο πρώτο δεκάλεπτο.
fétos i omádha íne pinazméni ya títlus, to vlépis sto próto dhekálepto
This season the team is hungry for silverware — you can see it in the first ten minutes.
The ancient active participle survives in exactly one register: οι πεινώντες, the hungry as a class, kept alive by the Beatitudes and quoted in journalism and political speech ever since. The pattern is on the learned active participle.
Μακάριοι οι πεινώντες και διψώντες την δικαιοσύνην.
makárii i pinóndes ke dhipsóndes tin dhikeosínin
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. (Matthew 5:6 — where this participle lives on)
Set phrases
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Πεινάς; | Are you hungry? — the everyday question |
| πεινάω σαν λύκος | be ravenous |
| πεθαίνω της πείνας | be starving (informal, hyperbolic) |
| δεν πεινάω καθόλου | I'm not hungry at all |
| Όποιος πεινάει καρβέλια ονειρεύεται. | A hungry man dreams of loaves. (proverb) |
| Των φρονίμων τα παιδιά πριν πεινάσουν μαγειρεύουν. | The wise cook before they're hungry. (proverb) |
Πεθαίνω της πείνας, ας σταματήσουμε κάπου να φάμε.
pethéno tis pínas, as stamatísume kápu na fáme
I'm starving — let's stop somewhere and eat.
Key Takeaways
- πεινάω · πεινούσα · πείνασα · πεινάσω · έχω πεινάσει · πεινασμένος. No mediopassive, and an imperative with no everyday use.
- Πείνασα = I'm hungry now. The perfective of a state marks the moment it began, so it translates as an English present.
- Πεινάω answers are you hungry?; είμαι πεινασμένος describes the person. Both are correct Greek.
- Hunger, thirst, cold, sleepiness, boredom and haste are all verbs in Greek, not be
- adjective.
- The verb also means go hungry, and πεινασμένος για is hungry in the ambitious sense.
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- διψάω/διψώ (to be thirsty)A2 — Greek names the thirst instead of being thirsty, and the same verb carries a craving: διψάω για δικαιοσύνη. Principal parts, the για frame, the colloquial Με δίψασε where the salty thing is the subject, and ξεδιψάω, which runs in both directions.
- τρώω (to eat)A2 — Two stems that share no letters — τρω- / τρωγ- against φαγ- — a present that contracts to τρως and τρώμε, and the habit English cannot copy: Έφαγες; with no object at all. Plus the γ that comes back in έτρωγα and τρώγεται, the participle φαγωμένος that describes the eater, and the idioms that turn on this verb's grammar.
- Learned Active Participles (-ων/-οντας)C1 — The ancient active participle seen from the verb's side: one -οντ- stem, three descendants — the frozen everyday gerund -οντας, the declined learned active -ων / -ουσα / -ον (ο ισχύων νόμος, η υπάρχουσα κατάσταση), and the middle participle in -όμενος / -ούμενος (οι εργαζόμενοι, τα εισερχόμενα, ο κατηγορούμενος), which is the one corner of the system still being used to make new words — plus how these participles head whole phrases like reduced relative clauses, why they negate with μη, and the -όμενος / -μένος split between a process and a result.
- Aorist: Class ΒA2 — The aorist of second-conjugation (Class Β) verbs — the contract verbs in -άω/-ώ. They are the most regular aorist in Greek: slot a linking vowel before the -σ- and add the past endings — αγάπησα, μίλησα, ρώτησα, περπάτησα. Covers the three linking-vowel families (-ησ-, -ασ-, -εσ-), the stress that rides the antepenult, and the -εύω lookalikes that are really Class Α.