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Gaunt vs Haunt - What's the difference?

gaunt | haunt |

As an adjective gaunt

is lean, angular and bony.

As a verb haunt is

to inhabit, or visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts).

As a noun haunt is

a place at which one is regularly found; a hangout.

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

    haunt

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (Scotland)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To inhabit, or visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts).
    • A couple of ghosts haunt the old, burnt-down house.
  • * Shakespeare
    • You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • those cares that haunt the court and town
  • * Fairfax
    • Foul spirits haunt my resting place.
  • To make uneasy, restless.
    • The memory of his past failures haunted him.
  • To stalk, to follow
    • The policeman haunted him, following him everywhere.
  • To live habitually; to stay, to remain.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , John XI:
    • Jesus therfore walked no more openly amonge the iewes: butt went his waye thence vnto a countre ny to a wildernes into a cite called effraym, and there haunted with his disciples.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.x:
    • yonder in that wastefull wildernesse / Huge monsters haunt , and many dangers dwell
  • To accustom; habituate; make accustomed to.
  • * Wyclif
    • Haunt thyself to pity.
  • To practise; to devote oneself to.
  • * Ascham
    • Leave honest pleasure, and haunt no good pastime.
  • To persist in staying or visiting.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I've charged thee not to haunt about my doors.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A place at which one is regularly found; a hangout.
  • *
  • * 1868 , , "Kitty's Class Day":
    • Both Jack and Fletcher had graduated the year before, but still took an interest in their old haunts , and patronized the fellows who were not yet through.
  • * 1984 , Timothy Loughran and Natalie Angier, " Science: Striking It Rich in Wyoming," Time , 8 Oct.:
    • Wyoming has been a favorite haunt of paleontologists for the past century ever since westering pioneers reported that many vertebrate fossils were almost lying on the ground.
  • (dialect) A ghost.
  • * 1891 , Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, p. 93:
    • ‘Harnts don't wander much ginerally,’ he said. ‘They hand round thar own buryin'-groun' mainly.’
  • A feeding place for animals.Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989.

    • References

    Anagrams

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