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Gaunt vs Halcyon - What's the difference?

gaunt | halcyon |

As an adjective gaunt

is lean, angular and bony.

As a proper noun halcyon is

.

gaunt

English

Alternative forms

* (l) * (l) (Scotland)

Adjective

(er)
  • lean, angular and bony
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1894 , author=Joseph Jacobs , title=The Fables of Aesop , chapter=1 citation , passage=A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by.}}
  • haggard, drawn and emaciated
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1917 , author=Arthur Conan Doyle , title=His Last Bow , chapter=5 citation , passage=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.}}
  • bleak, barren and desolate
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1908 , author=William Hope Hodgson , title=The House on the Borderland , chapter=14 citation , passage=Behind me, rose up, to an extraordinary height, gaunt , black cliffs. }}

    Synonyms

    * scraggy, scrawny, skinny

    halcyon

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • In classical legends, a bird said to nest on the sea, thereby calming the waters; later usually identified with a type of kingfisher, hence (poetic) a kingfisher.
  • *, II.12:
    • the Halcyon' bird, or as some call it Alcedo or Kings-fisher, exceeds all mens conceit..
  • * 1665 , (John Dryden), (The Indian Emperour) , IV iv 132:
    • Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be / As halcyons brooding on a winter sea.
  • * c''.1880 , (Ambrose Bierce), '' :
    • And, by the way, during those halcyon days (the halcyon was there, too, chattering above every creek, as he is all over the world) we fought another battle.
  • * Dryden
    • Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be / As halcyons brooding on a winter sea.
  • A tropical kingfisher of the genus Halcyon'', such as the sacred kingfisher ''(Halcyon sancta) of Australia.

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the halcyon or kingfisher
  • Calm, undisturbed, peaceful, serene.

    • Quotations

    {{timeline, 1700s=1787, 1800s=1842, 1900s=1919 1963}} * 1787 — *: Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age. * 1842 — , Cicero *:* Deep, halcyon repose. * 1919 — *: I had wander’d in rapture beneath them, and bask’d in the Halcyon clime. *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham) , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.}}

    Synonyms

    * at peace, blissful, calm, peaceful, prelapsarian, relaxed, serene

    Derived terms

    * halcyon days

    See also

    * Alcyone ----