Gaunt definition

gônt

Words form:

Frequency:

Bleak or desolate.

adjective

Thin or emaciated.

adjective

Thin and bony; hollow-eyed and haggard, as from great hunger or age; emaciated.

adjective

Looking grim, forbidding, or desolate.

adjective

The definition of gaunt is looking thin, bony or sickly.

An example of gaunt is the appearance of someone who hasn’t eaten enough for many weeks.

adjective

adjective

adjective

adjective

Other Word Forms

Base Form:

gaunt

Comparative:

gaunter

Superlative:

gauntest

Middle English perhaps from Old French gant possibly of Scandinavian origin

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