Gaunt Definition

gônt

gauntest, gaunter

adjective

gaunter, gauntest

Thin or emaciated.

American Heritage

Thin and bony; hollow-eyed and haggard, as from great hunger or age; emaciated.

Webster's New World

Looking grim, forbidding, or desolate.

Webster's New World

Wiktionary

Wiktionary

Synonyms:

Antonyms:

Other Word Forms of Gaunt

Base Form:

gaunt

Comparative:

gaunter

Superlative:

gauntest

From Middle English gawnt, gawnte (“lean, slender”), from Old French, probably from a Scandinavian source, related to Old Norse gandr (“magic staff, stick”), from Proto-Germanic *gandaz (“stick, staff”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to beat, hit, drive”). Cognate with Icelandic gandur (“magic staff”), Norwegian gand (“tall pointed stick; tall, thin man”), Danish gand, gan, Norwegian gana (“cut-off tree limbs”), Bavarian Gunten (“a kind of wedge or peg”). Related also to Old English gūþ (“battle”), Latin dēfendō (“ward off, defend”). Compare also Swedish dialectal gank (“a lean, emaciated horse”).

From Wiktionary
Middle English perhaps from Old French gant possibly of Scandinavian origin

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition