gaunt

See also: Gaunt

English

WOTD – 16 September 2024

Etymology

From Middle English gaunt, gawnt, gawnte, gant (“lean, slender, thin, gaunt”);[1] further etymology uncertain. Speculated origins include:[2]

  • from a North Germanic/Scandinavian source related to Old Norse gandr (“magic staff; stick”) (the ancestor of Icelandic gandur (“magic staff”) and Norwegian gand (“thin, pointed stick; tall, thin man”)), from Proto-Germanic *gandaz (“stick; staff”). Other suggested Germanic cognates include Swedish gank (“(dialectal) lean, emaciated horse”); Danish gand, gan, Norwegian gana (“cut-off tree limbs”); Bavarian Gunten (“kind of peg or wedge”). These words have all been connected to *gunþiz (“battle”) or its ultimate source,[3][4] but this comparison presents semantic and phonetic difficulties.
  • from Old French:
    • The NED/OED (1900) suggests it could be a "graphic adoption" of Old French gant, a variant spelling of gent (“elegant; nice, pleasant; noble”) modern French gent), from Latin gēns (“clan, tribe; country, nation; family; people”), from Proto-Italic *gentis, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis,[5] from the root *ǵenh₁- (“to produce, to beget, to give birth”). (It could not be an oral borrowing since the Old French word started with [dʒ], not [ɡ], due to the patalization of Latin "ge"; compare jaunty from French gentil.) If this etymology is correct, the early, now-obsolete positive or neutral sense 4.1 ("slender") was apparently original.
    • Spitzer 1944 argues it is more likely to be from the Norman version of Old French jau(l)net (“yellowish”),[6] diminutive of jaune (“yellow”), from Latin galbinus (the palatalization of Latin "ga" did not occur in northern French dialects).

Pronunciation

Adjective

gaunt (comparative gaunter, superlative gauntest)

  1. Angular, bony, and lean.
  2. Unhealthily thin, as from hunger or illness: drawn, emaciated, haggard.
    Synonyms: scraggy, scrawny, skinny
    • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Simmes for Androw Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], signature [C4], recto:
      Old Gaunt indeede, and gaunt in being olde: / VVithin me Griefe hath kept a tedious faſt. / And vvho abſtaines from meate that is not gaunt? / For ſleeping England long time haue I vvatcht, / VVatching breedes leaneneſſe, leaneneſſe is all gaunt: / The pleaſure that ſome fathers feede vpon / Is my ſtrict faſt; I meane my childrens lookes, / And therein faſting haſt thou made me gaunt: / Gaunt am I for the graue, gaunt as a graue, / VVhoſe hollovv vvombe inherites naught but bones.
    • 1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 105, lines 319–320:
      VVhen once he [a horse]'s broken, feed him full and high: / Indulge his Grovvth, and his gaunt ſides ſupply.
    • 1846, Charles Dickens, “To Parma, Modena, and Bologna”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 89:
      [T]he gauntest of dogs trot in and out of the dullest of archways, in perpetual search of something to eat, which they never seem to find.
    • 1894, Aesop, Joseph Jacobs, “The Dog and the Wolf”, in The Fables of Æsop […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 70:
      A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by.
    • 1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Stillness”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book II (The Earth under the Martians), page 239:
      Far away I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men there were none.
    • 1913 November 22, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Dying Detective”, in His Last Bow: A Reminiscence of Sherlock Holmes, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published October 1917, →OCLC, page 181:
      In the dim light of a foggy November day the sick-room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart.
    • 1985 August, Norman Spinrad, chapter 30, in Child of Fortune, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 472:
      For even as the flesh melted away from Pater Pan's gaunter and gaunter figure to the point where I marveled that he could yet sit upright, […] his eyes seemed to grow larger and more brilliant in their deepening sockets, one could almost perceive them glowing from within with the blue light of a brain that would now seem to be burning itself out in ecstasy.
    • 2024 February 17, “The FT View: The extraordinary courage of Alexei Navalny”, in Financial Times‎[1], London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 February 2024, page 8:
      Whatever the official cause of his is death is said to be—and [Alexei] Navalny, though gaunt, seemed in good spirits in a court hearing a day earlier—foreign leaders are rightly holding the Kremlin responsible.
  3. (figurative)
    1. Of a place or thing: bleak, desolate.
    2. (rare) Greedy; also, hungry, ravenous.
      • 1747, [Tobias Smollett], Reproof: A Satire. […], London: […] W. Owen, […]; and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC, page 7, lines 123–124:
        Gorg'd vvith our plunder, yet ſtill gaunt for ſpoil, / Rapacious G—d—n faſtens on our iſle; […]
  4. (obsolete)
    2. With a positive or neutral connotation: not overweight; lean, slender, slim.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:slender
      Antonyms: see Thesaurus:obese, Thesaurus:overweight
      • 1549 April 15 (Gregorian calendar), Hugh Latimer, “The Fifth Sermon Preached before King Edward [VI], April 5th, 1549.”, in The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, and Constant Martyr of Jesus Christ, Hugh Latimer, Some Time Bishop of Worcester, […], volume I, London: […] James Duncan, […], published 1824, →OCLC, page 170:
        I know where a woman was got with child, and was ashamed at the matter, and went into a secret place, where she had no woman at her travail, and was delivered of three children at a birth. She wrung their necks, and cast them into a water, and so killed her children: suddenly she was gaunt again, and her neighbours suspecting the matter, caused her to be examined, and she granted all: […]
        The spelling has been modernized.
      • 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XXIII.] The Medecines which Grapes Fresh and New Gathered doe Yeeld. […].”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], 2nd tome, London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, pages 152–153:
        [T]hey vvho feed overmuch, and deſire to be gant and ſlender, and vvithall, to be coſtive, ought to forbear drinking at meales, ſo long as they eat, but after meat they may drink moderatly. To drinke vvine upon an emptie ſtomacke faſting, is a nevv found deviſe lately come up, and it is moſt unholeſome for the bodie, […]
      • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Eothen”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 516:
        [O]ur friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape.
    3. (figurative) Of a sound: suggesting bleakness and desolation.
      • 1814, [John Galt], “The Prophetess; a Tragedy. […]”, in The New British Theatre; a Selection of Original Dramas, Not Yet Acted, […], volume I, London: […] A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy [for] Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene v, page 187:
        To the shouting throng / My fancy hears a dismal voice reply, / Like the gaunt echo of a hollow tomb.— […]

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “gaunt, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Gaunt”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IV (F–G), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 82.
  3. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959) “491-93”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, pages 491-93
  4. ^ Quiles, C., Lopez-Menchero, F. (2009). A Grammar of Modern Indo-European: Language and Culture, Writing System and Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Texts and Dictionary, Etymology. United States: Asociación Cultural Dńghū., p. 60
  5. ^ “kind”; in: M. Philippa e.a., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands
  6. ^ Spitzer, Leo (1944) “Anglo-French Etymologies”, in Modern Language Notes, volume 59, number 4, pages 223-250
  7. ^ “gaunt, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2024
  8. ^ “gaunt, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

Scots

Verb

gaunt (third-person singular simple present gaunts, present participle gauntin, simple past gauntt, past participle gauntt)

  1. alternative spelling of gant

Noun

gaunt (plural gaunts)

  1. alternative spelling of gant
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