Taunt

//tɔːnt// adj, name, noun, verb

adj, name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A scornful or mocking remark; a jeer or mockery.

    "VVith ſcoffes and ſcornes, and contumelious taunts, / In open Market-place produc't they me, / To be a publique ſpectacle to all: / Here, ſayd they, is the Terror of the French, / The Scar-Crovv that affrights our Children ſo."

  2. 2
    aggravation by deriding or mocking or criticizing wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To make fun of (someone); to goad (a person) into responding, often in an aggressive manner. transitive
  2. 2
    harass with persistent criticism or carping wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Very high or tall. obsolete

    "the great ships, for want of ſufficient masts, will lose the advantages the taunt masts would procure"

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
teasetwitaccuseaffrontallegeannoy

Antonyms

All antonyms
pacify

Example

More examples

"Don't taunt him. He's liable to fight back eventually."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle French tanter (“to tempt, try, provoke”), variant of Old French tempter (“to try”). Doublet of tempt.

Etymology 2

Compare Old French tant (“so great”), French tant (“so much”), Latin tantus (“of such size, so great, so much”). See ataunt.

Etymology 3

Perhaps a variant of Daunt.

Related phrases

playground taunt

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.