gaunt
adjective
extremely thin and bony; haggard and drawn, as from great hunger, weariness, or torture; emaciated.
Jump To:
gaunt
1 American
[gawnt]
/ gɔnt /
adjective
-
gaunter,
comparative
-
gauntest
superlative
Gaunt
2
American
[gawnt, gahnt]
/ gɔnt, gɑnt /
noun
gaunt
British
/ ɡɔːnt /
adjective
-
bony and emaciated in appearance
-
(of places) bleak or desolate
Synonym Usage
See thin.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of gaunt
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, probably from Old French gaunet, jaunet “yellowish,” derivative of gaune, jaune “yellow,” from Latin galbinus “greenish-yellow”
Explanation
The word gaunt means extremely bony or thin, often from weariness, suffering, or hunger. A place that is described as gaunt may look deserted, harsh, or just very plain. A stark, desolate landscape may be described as gaunt: harsh, barren, seemingly lifeless. If a group of hikers get lost for weeks in such a wilderness, surviving with little food or warmth, they would likely start to look gaunt: haggard, perhaps a bit skeletal. When they spy a gaunt old fortress on a hilltop, they'd probably ignore the fact that it looks abandoned, gloomy, even forbidding, and knock on the door to seek help. Don't worry — the gaunt-faced woman inside the mansion turns out to be a lovely person, who offers warmth and refuge.
Vocabulary lists containing gaunt
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Refugee
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
Nitibhon, a Thai supermodel, plays her tycoon as comically drab, keeping her gaunt cheeks slack to emphasize her character’s hollowness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026
The pressure he felt at Merrill made him look even more gaunt.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025
Other prisoners have appeared gaunt and almost unrecognisable.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2025
As prisoners exited a Red Cross bus in Ramallah, many draped in traditional Keffiyeh scarves, they looked pale and gaunt, with some struggling to walk.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2025
Someone advanced from the sea of faces, someone tall and gaunt dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face, parchment-white, set on a skeleton’s frame.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
"In all the areas I've worked in… it's by far the worst here," one of the officers involved, PC Victoria Gaunt, told us.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
There’s a healthy place for AI in business communications, Gaunt says: crisis communicators can use it as a “devil’s advocate” when evaluating approaches or stress-testing strategies.
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
Gaunt men and “children, big-eyed and thin,” walked up and clutched the rabbi’s raincoat.
From Slate ● Jan. 28, 2024
“Getting ghosted or zombied typically results in sadness, anger and oftentimes actual depression,” said Ms. Gaunt, author of the recent book “Prince Charming is Dead … or in Rehab.”
From Washington Times ● May 28, 2023
“M’daughter, Merope,” said Gaunt grudgingly, as Ogden looked inquiringly toward her.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
For the last two-thirds of the film we mainly follow the wanderings of Garfield’s Father Rodrigues, who grows ever gaunter, more ragged, and more spiritually bereft.
From Slate ● Dec. 22, 2016
Looking greyer, gaunter, grimmer than ever, Utah's 70-year-old Senator Reed Smoot arose behind his paper-cluttered aisle desk last week to perform an important function.
From Time Magazine Archive
After a month of illness in Lahore, Jinnah recently returned to Karachi, gaunter than ever.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now it was Lind say, gaunter and grayer after. four years of grappling with crises, who seemed like a man on the defensive.
From Time Magazine Archive
She seemed gaunter and thinner than ever, yet her eyes had lost little of their fire, although they seemed set deeper in the caverns of her face.
From The Moving Finger by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
It will be the rawest, gauntest, ungainliest brute that ever scared the motor-bicycles on the Northampton Road.
From The Research Magnificent by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
At last even the gauntest of them filled up and left the room and we were free to sit at "the second table" and eat, while the men rested outside.
From A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
One part of the lane he could see plainly, and into it stalked Joel Creech, leading the leanest and gauntest ponies Slone had ever seen.
From Wildfire by Zane Grey
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.
