hunt

From Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian (“to hunt”), from Proto-West Germanic *huntōn (“to hunt, capture”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱent- (“to catch, seize”). Related to Old High German hunda (“booty”), Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (hunþs, “body of captives”), Old English hūþ (“plunder, booty, prey”), Old English hentan (“to catch, seize”). More at hent, hint. In some areas read as a collective form of hound by folk etymology.

• IPA^(key): /hʌnt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌnt

hunt (third-person singular simple present hunts, present participle hunting, simple past and past participle hunted)

1. (ambitransitive) To find or search for an animal in the wild with the intention of killing the animal for its meat or for sport.

   State Wildlife Management areas often offer licensed hunters the opportunity to hunt on public lands.

   Her uncle will go out and hunt for deer, now that it is open season.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 27:5–passageEsau went to the field to hunt for venison.:
   • 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 100:

     Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, / Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

   • 1981, Field & Stream, volume 86, number 5, page 107:

     Either the bird will be downgraded to "threatened" status — which means it can be hunted — or it will be declared a nonspecies, as has already happened to all its taxonomic kissing cousins.

   • 2010, Backyard deer hunting: converting deer to dinner for pennies per pound, →ISBN, page 10:
2. (ambitransitive) To try to find something; search (for).

   The little girl was hunting for shells on the beach.

   The police are hunting for evidence.

   • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     He after honour hunts, I after love.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

   • 2004, Prill Boyle, Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Women, →ISBN, page 119:

     My idea of retirement was to hunt seashells, play golf, and do a lot of walking.

   • 2011, Ann Major, Nobody's Child, →ISBN:

     What kind of woman came to an island and stayed there through a violent storm and then got up the next morning to hunt seashells? She had fine, delicate features with high cheekbones and the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.

3. (transitive) To drive; to chase; with down, from, away, etc.

   to hunt down a criminal

   He was hunted from the parish.

5. (transitive) To use or manage (dogs, horses, etc.) in hunting.

   Did you hunt that pony last week?

   • 1711 July 15 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, July 4, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 104; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country.

     The spelling has been modernized.

6. (transitive) To use or traverse in pursuit of game.

   He hunts the woods, or the country.

7. (bell-ringing, transitive) To move or shift the order of (a bell) in a regular course of changes.
8. (bell-ringing, intransitive) To shift up and down in order regularly.
9. (engineering, intransitive) To be in a state of instability of movement or forced oscillation, as a governor which has a large movement of the balls for small change of load, an arc-lamp clutch mechanism which moves rapidly up and down with variations of current, etc.; also, to seesaw, as a pair of alternators working in parallel.
   • 1995, Bernard Wilkie, Special Effects in Television, page 174:

     […] after which the inertia of the camera causes the motor to hunt with fluctuating speed.

hunt (plural hunts)

1. The act of hunting.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 134:

     Through male bonding, the subculture of the hunt caught up in the mystique of the chase, the hunting party became a military force, and men discovered that they need not stop at defense: they could go out to hunt for other people's wealth.

2. A hunting expedition.
3. An organization devoted to hunting, or the people belonging to it.
4. A pack of hunting dogs.

• Thun

• Hund

hunt ?

1. (Sappada, Sauris, Timau) dog

• Umberto Patuzzi, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar, Luserna: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien.

From Middle High German hunt, from Old High German hunt, from Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz. Cognate with German Hund, English hound.

hunt m (plural hunte, diminutive hüntle, feminine hünten)

1. (Luserna, Sette Comuni) dog
2. (Sette Comuni) firing pin
3. (Sette Comuni) large iron clamp

   Coordinate term: klamara

• “hunt” in Martalar, Umberto Martello, Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo
• Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Luserna / Lusérn: Le nostre parole / Ünsarne börtar / Unsere Wörter [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle isole linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

Borrowed from German Hund.

• IPA^(key): [ˈɦunt]

hunt m inan

1. Used in the phrase:

   být na huntě ― to be broke

   přivést na hunt ― to make broke

• mizina

• “hunt”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “hunt”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “hunt”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

Most likely from Middle Low German hunt. Possibly an earlier loan from Proto-Germanic *hundaz.

hunt (genitive hundi, partitive hunti)

1. wolf, grey wolf

• susi
• untsantsakas
• hall hunt

hunt

1. (Early Scots, Northern) alternative form of hunten

• IPA^(key): (before 13^th CE) /ˈhʊnt/

From Old High German hunt, from Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓ.

hunt m

1. dog (Canis familiaris)

   er ist ouch des hundes spot, swer versmæhet unsern herren got

   (please add an English translation of this usage example)

2. (derogatory) dog (morally reprehensible person)

• Alemannic German: Hund
  • Alsatian: Hund
  • Swabian: Hond
  • Walser: hun, hund, hunn, hònn
• Bavarian:
  • Cimbrian: hunt
  • Mòcheno: hunt
  • Udinese: hunt
• Central Franconian: Hond, Honk (most dialects of Ripuarian), Hongk (Aachen), Hunk (Kölsch)
  • Hunsrik: Hund
  • Kölsch: Hunk, Hungk
  • Luxembourgish: Hond
• German: Hund
  • → Esperanto: hundo
    • → Ido: hundo
• Mòcheno: hunt
• Vilamovian: hund
• Yiddish: הונט (hunt)

From Old High German *hunt.

hunt n

1. hundred

   Synonym: hundert

• German: hunt

• Benecke, Georg Friedrich, Müller, Wilhelm, Zarncke, Friedrich (1863) “HUNT stm.”, in Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Benecke, Stuttgart: S. Hirzel
• Benecke, Georg Friedrich, Müller, Wilhelm, Zarncke, Friedrich (1863) “HUNT stn.”, in Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Benecke, Stuttgart: S. Hirzel
• "hunt" in Köbler, Gerhard, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch (3rd edition 2014)

From Middle High German hunt, from Old High German hunt, from Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz (“dog”). Cognate with German Hund, English hound.

hunt m

1. dog

• Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Luserna / Lusérn: Le nostre parole / Ünsarne börtar / Unsere Wörter [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle isole linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

From Proto-West Germanic *hund.

hunt m

1. dog

• Middle Dutch: hont
  • Dutch: hond

• “hunt (I)”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

From Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓ.

hunt m

1. dog

• Middle High German: hunt
  • Alemannic German: Hund
    • Alsatian: Hund
    • Swabian: Hond
    • Walser: hun, hund, hunn, hònn
  • Bavarian:
    • Cimbrian: hunt
    • Mòcheno: hunt
    • Udinese: hunt
  • Central Franconian: Hond, Honk (most dialects of Ripuarian), Hongk (Aachen), Hunk (Kölsch)
    • Hunsrik: Hund
    • Kölsch: Hunk, Hungk
    • Luxembourgish: Hond
  • German: Hund
    • → Esperanto: hundo
      • → Ido: hundo
  • Mòcheno: hunt
  • Vilamovian: hund
  • Yiddish: הונט (hunt)

• Köbler, Gerhard (2014) “hunt”, in Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch‎^[1] (in German), 6th edition