What does "gaunt" mean?
Angular, bony, and lean.
Gaunt
/ɡɔːnt/ adj, name
adj, name ·Common ·High school level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: Angular, bony, and lean.
- Grammar: gaunt is listed as adj, name.
- Nearest alternatives: emaciated, skeletal, acarpous, angular.
- Useful contrasts: blimpish, burly, buxom.
- Usage evidence: The gaunt policeman had a bolt-action rifle slung over one shoulder.
How to use "gaunt"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "gaunt" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "gaunt" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "gaunt" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "gaunt" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Compare nearby meanings
- Use synonyms when you need a softer, stronger, simpler, or more specific word.
- Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
- Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
- Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.
Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "gaunt" is acting as adj, name in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
2. Test the nearest option
Compare it with "emaciated" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
3. Confirm with context
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
Review note: Definition pages are checked for source coverage, sentence evidence, synonym support, and editorial insight before they are treated as approval-ready pages. If the evidence is too thin, the page remains available to users but is kept out of the approval-facing indexed inventory.
Final meaning check
Before publishing a sentence with "gaunt", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.
When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Angular, bony, and lean.
"[H]e presented for the first time to Mannering his tall, gaunt, awkward, boney figure, attired in a threadbare suit of black, […]"
- 2 Unhealthily thin, as from hunger or illness: drawn, emaciated, haggard.
"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."
- 3 Of a place or thing: bleak, desolate. figuratively
"But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before me the old dark murky rooms—the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly silent air—the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone— […]"
- 4 Greedy; also, hungry, ravenous. figuratively, rare
"Gorg'd vvith our plunder, yet ſtill gaunt for ſpoil, / Rapacious G—d—n faſtens on our iſle; […]"
- 5 With a positive or neutral connotation: not overweight; lean, slender, slim. obsolete
"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: […]"
Show 1 more definition
- 6 Of a sound: suggesting bleakness and desolation. figuratively, obsolete
"To the shouting throng / My fancy hears a dismal voice reply, / Like the gaunt echo of a hollow tomb.— […]"
Adjective
- 1 very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold wordnet
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname.
- 2 Obsolete spelling of Ghent. alt-of, obsolete
Example
"The gaunt policeman had a bolt-action rifle slung over one shoulder."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "gaunt"?
Common synonyms include: emaciated, skeletal, acarpous, angular, anorexic, arid.
How do you use "gaunt" in a sentence?
The gaunt policeman had a bolt-action rifle slung over one shoulder.
How do you pronounce "gaunt"?
Pronounced /ɡɔːnt/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Middle English gaunt, gawnt, gawnte, gant (“lean, slender, thin, gaunt”); further etymology uncertain. Speculated origins include: * 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, 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, 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 palatalization 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”), diminutive of jaune (“yellow”), from Latin galbinus (the palatalization of Latin "ga" did not occur in northern French dialects).
Etymology 2
English surname, variant of Gant.