gaunt
extremely thin and bony; haggard and drawn, as from great hunger, weariness, or torture; emaciated.
bleak, desolate, or grim, as places or things: a gaunt, windswept landscape.
Origin of gaunt
1synonym study For gaunt
word story For gaunt
The etymology of gaunt is uncertain. It is a Middle English word (also spelled gant ) that may come from Old French gant, a possible variant of gaunet, jaunet “yellowish.” Other etymologists suggest a Scandinavian origin, such as Norwegian gand “a thin, pointed stick; a tall, thin man.”
John of Gaunt, a son of King Edward III and father of King Henry IV, was so named because he was born in the Flemish city of Ghent ( Gand in French, Gent in Flemish), corrupted to Gaunt in English.
Other words for gaunt
Opposites for gaunt
Other words from gaunt
- gauntly, adverb
- gauntness, noun
Other definitions for Gaunt (2 of 2)
John of. John of Gaunt.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use gaunt in a sentence
In the West Village, it could be seen on the faces of passersby, not just faces that were gaunt and wasted from the disease, but faces full of worry, grief and despair.
The virus caused more than a pandemic. It set us all ablaze. | Philip Kennicott | February 5, 2021 | Washington PostHis work is made all the more extraordinary by the fact that he was dying of colorectal cancer when he filmed it – something perhaps evidenced by a gaunt appearance, but in no way by the intensity and passion of his performance.
The visual imagination is gauntly beautiful, but none of it feels particularly terrifying.
Scarlett Johansson is an Alien Seductress in ‘Under the Skin’ | Jimmy So | April 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTUndaunted, though gauntly, leaning over his stick, Langler went on.
The Last Miracle | M. P. ShielHere rose gauntly, in the glare of torch or camp fire, the mast of some half-built schooner.
The Magnificent Adventure | Emerson Hough
His clothes hung gauntly upon him, and he had a weak-kneed stoop.
Questionable Shapes | William Dean HowellsStark tree trunks—all bare of leaves, some riven of all except the largest branches, a few stripped even of bark—stood gauntly.
Triplanetary | Edward Elmer SmithThe whole ugly shape of it stood out gauntly against the sky of the summer night.
The Crooked House | Brandon Fleming
British Dictionary definitions for gaunt
/ (ɡɔːnt) /
bony and emaciated in appearance
(of places) bleak or desolate
Origin of gaunt
1Derived forms of gaunt
- gauntly, adverb
- gauntness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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