This Aramaic-influenced term denotes severe hunger or famine. Both occurrences are in Job's speeches, describing either threats to laugh at (5:22, in Eliphaz's promises) or actual desperate circumstances (30:3, in Job's lament about the destitute). The word emphasizes the physical experience of starvation and food scarcity. In chapter 5, it's listed among dangers that won't harm the righteous; in chapter 30, it describes the actual gnawing hunger of society's outcasts - the theoretical protection versus lived reality forming part of Job's bitter response to his friends.