starvation; bodies of the starved
Archaic literary term for death by starvation or the corpses of those who starved. Not used in modern everyday Japanese.
Ancient documents record that during the famine, the roads were filled with the bodies of the starved.
Compound of 餓 (starvation) and 莩 (a rare character for dying of hunger or the corpse of a starved person). The exact historical derivation is uncertain; the spelling is conventionally associated with classical Chinese texts.