haunch
Americannoun
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the hip.
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the fleshy part of the body about the hip.
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a hindquarter of an animal.
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the leg and loin of an animal, used for food.
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Architecture.
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either side of an arch, extending from the vertex or crown to the impost.
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the part of a beam projecting below a floor or roof slab.
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noun
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the human hip or fleshy hindquarter of an animal, esp a horse or similar quadruped
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the leg and loin of an animal, used for food
a haunch of venison
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Also called: hance. architect the part of an arch between the impost and the apex
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of haunch
1150–1200; Middle English haunche < Old French hanche < Germanic; compare Middle Dutch hanke haunch, hip, German Hanke haunch
Explanation
A haunch is the back end of an animal — its rump and rear leg. When you walk behind a horse, it's important to stay far enough away from its haunches that you won't get kicked. You can use the word haunch for the hind parts of a four-legged animal or for the hip and thigh of a person. When you squat like a catcher in baseball, you sit on your haunches, and a cow with an itchy backside might rub its haunch against a fence post. The word stems from hanche, which means "hip or thigh" in Old French, from a Germanic root.
Vocabulary lists containing haunch
A Long Walk to Water
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Into the Wild
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The Jungle Book
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Grade II* Haunch of Venison in the centre of Salisbury, Wiltshire, began as a church house in the 1400s before becoming a public house.
From BBC • Feb. 6, 2020
Haunch of Venison, London W1, from 13 July until 1 September Graham GussinA thoughtful, engaging artist responds to an English parkland.•
From The Guardian • Jul. 6, 2012
Her most recent exhibition outside of Russia, “Glasnost: Soviet Non-Conformist Art from the 1980s,” is running at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London through June 26.
From New York Times • May 28, 2010
His “winery” was called Doe Haunch and was a major family joke.
From The New Yorker • May 24, 2010
Haunch of the antlered deer, Feast the two races.
From Verses and Rhymes By the Way by McDougall, Margaret Moran Dixon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
