daunt
Americanverb (used with object)
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daunts,
present (3rd person singular)
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daunted,
past participle, past
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daunting
present participle
verb
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to intimidate
-
to dishearten
Usage
What does daunt mean? Daunt means to intimidate. This intimidation can be a pretty serious fear, like that of a warrior who daunts enemies in battle. More commonly, though, daunt means to intimidate in a way that’s disheartening, like a task that daunts you because it seems impossible. People who are intimidated in such a way can be described with the adjective daunted. An even more commonly used adjective is daunting, which comes from the continuous tense (the -ing form) of daunt. If a task is daunting, it’s intimidating or overwhelming in a way that makes you not even want to try to do it. Example: When I first started at this job, I was really daunted by my first assignment, which was reorganizing 10 years’ worth of files.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dauntsimple
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dauntssimple
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have dauntedperfect
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has dauntedperfect
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am dauntingprogressive
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are dauntingprogressive
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is dauntingprogressive
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have been dauntingperfect progressive
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has been dauntingperfect progressive
Past
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dauntedsimple
-
had dauntedperfect
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was dauntingprogressive
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were dauntingprogressive
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had been dauntingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of daunt
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English da(u)nten, from Anglo-French da(u)nter, Old French danter, alteration of donter (probably by influence of dangier “power, authority”; see danger), from Latin domitāre “to tame,” derivative of domitus “tamed,” past participle of domāre “to tame”
Explanation
Daunt means to frighten or scare off. The Cowardly Lion's efforts to daunt Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man were less than successful. Daunt rhymes with haunt, another word which means to frighten, though in a creepier sense. Walking through your neighbors' haunted house on Halloween might daunt your little brother, even though he's unlikely to encounter anything scarier than plastic skeletons and ghosts made of sheets. Daunt often shows up as part of the adjective undaunted, which describes someone who remains unafraid or perseveres in the face of scary circumstances.
Vocabulary lists containing daunt
Uncanny, Creepy, or Downright Scary: Words For Halloween
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Beowulf: A New Telling
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"The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving
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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.
See Examples For:
“Ragtime” draws a portrait of America at a time of turmoil with broad dramatic strokes and emotional specificity, a high-wire act that might daunt the likes of Houdini—yet another character in the show.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
Nor do they daunt the current crop of entrepreneurs, who are mostly recycling old buildings, not putting up new ones.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
Temperatures were in the 20s at game time but its didn't daunt a red-clad crowd of more than 29,000.
From Fox News ● Mar. 28, 2022
Neither the science nor statistics of the new vaccine daunt them.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 30, 2021
The mountains seemed to be trying with their deadly breath to daunt them, to turn them back from the secrets of the high places, or to blow them away into the darkness behind.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
But as he gears up to release his third book on Tuesday, Tweedy admits the task of writing no longer daunts him the way it once did.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 6, 2023
But what he’s mostly done on hard courts is conquer what daunts him, by fighting the kinds of relentless battles that he relishes, as he did against a rising hard-court comer on Sunday.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 9, 2019
Each of the eight huge prints dazzles and daunts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2015
It daunts her to consider the situation’s basic math, the impossibility of matching her supplies to their numbers.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2011
‘I do not know which daunts me more: Fangorn, or the thought of the long road through Rohan on foot,’ said Gimli.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
AI may not be sentient, but it gets daunted in the same way we do.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
But overwhelmed by the early weeks of motherhood, and suffering from post-partum depression after a traumatic birth, she was daunted by the prospect of a long journey to a doctor's surgery.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Auto enthusiasts, often daunted by the increasingly complex and proprietary nature of vehicle repairs, have drawn momentum from farmers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 19, 2026
Paulson said older workers may be daunted by the potential costs, time and effort, as well as the potential stigma associated with being a whistleblower.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 10, 2025
She spent long hours out in the country by herself, spoke little, withdrew completely into herself and went about her tasks with a chill hopelessness that daunted me.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
Reshoring efforts can take years—a daunting prospect when tariff rates fluctuate often.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Here, including the daunting high-speed, downhill Turn Seven known as Scheivlak, Norris was fastest, 0.28secs quicker than Russell.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
But what looks good on spreadsheets ignores daunting constraints.
From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026
All this should help him make a success of his daunting role flying close to the sun.
From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026
Even for an expert code breaker, this is daunting.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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.
