Gaunt Definition

gônt
gauntest, gaunter
adjective
gaunter, gauntest
Thin or emaciated.
American Heritage
Thin and bony; hollow-eyed and haggard, as from great hunger or age; emaciated.
Webster's New World
Looking grim, forbidding, or desolate.
Webster's New World
Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Antonyms:

Other Word Forms of Gaunt

Adjective

Base Form:
gaunt
Comparative:
gaunter
Superlative:
gauntest

Origin of Gaunt

  • From Middle English gawnt, gawnte (“lean, slender”), from Old French, probably from a Scandinavian source, related to Old Norse gandr (“magic staff, stick”), from Proto-Germanic *gandaz (“stick, staff”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to beat, hit, drive”). Cognate with Icelandic gandur (“magic staff”), Norwegian gand (“tall pointed stick; tall, thin man”), Danish gand, gan, Norwegian gana (“cut-off tree limbs”), Bavarian Gunten (“a kind of wedge or peg”). Related also to Old English gūþ (“battle”), Latin dēfendō (“ward off, defend”). Compare also Swedish dialectal gank (“a lean, emaciated horse”).

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English perhaps from Old French gant possibly of Scandinavian origin

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

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