Gaunt
Pronunciation
- enPR: gônt, IPA: /É¡É”Ënt/
- some accents enPR: gänt, IPA: /É¡É‘Ënt/
- Rhymes: -É”Ënt, -É‘Ënt
Origin
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 dēfendŠ("ward off, defend"). Compare also Swedish dialectal gank ("a lean, emaciated horse").
Full definition of gaunt
Adjective
gaunt
- lean, angular, and bony
- 1894, Joseph Jacobs, The Fables of Aesop Chapter 1, A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by.
- haggard, drawn, and emaciated
- 1917, Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow Chapter 5, In the dim light of a foggy November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart.
- bleak, barren, and desolate
- 1908, William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland Chapter 14, Behind me, rose up, to an extraordinary height, gaunt, black cliffs.