gaunt
adjective
extremely thin and bony; haggard and drawn, as from great hunger, weariness, or torture; emaciated.
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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
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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:
Heaps, looking gaunt and frail in an orange jail shirt and pants, showed almost no reaction as he was sentenced.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2026
The earl of Arundel’s tomb expresses the grim realities beneath the era’s facade of chivalry: Above, he is depicted resplendent in full armor; below, as a gaunt cadaver.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
Based in leafy south-west London, the Victorian-era facility - with its gaunt brick walls and a dark intimidating entrance - is one of the largest in the UK.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2025
Other prisoners have appeared gaunt and almost unrecognisable.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2025
He was weak and gaunt, confined to his bed and almost completely incapable of any kind of physical activity.
From "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok
Andy Gaunt, director of community interest company Mercian Archaeology Services, explained Sherwood Forest was a royal hunting area made up of woodland and heath, with well-used routes and small settlements within it.
From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026
“The sentence construction ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ is one of the biggest tells in AI,” Jeff Gaunt, founder of Gaunt Strategies, told Shaina.
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
“But isn’t it...sir, isn’t it the same ring Marvolo Gaunt showed Ogden?”
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
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
Bob Dole's cranky bombast suggests a gaunter Foghorn Leghorn.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Through reeking lanes, foul alleys, and muddy mews where gaunt dogs battled over scraps with gaunter children, we ran, 433 or lurked to listen, shunning the bleared lanthorn-light, shining through the storm.
From Cardigan by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
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
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
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
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.
