Gaunt vs Stark - What's the difference?
gaunt | stark |
lean, angular and bony
* {{quote-book
, year=1894
, author=Joseph Jacobs
, title=The Fables of Aesop
, chapter=1
haggard, drawn and emaciated
* {{quote-book
, year=1917
, author=Arthur Conan Doyle
, title=His Last Bow
, chapter=5
bleak, barren and desolate
* {{quote-book
, year=1908
, author=William Hope Hodgson
, title=The House on the Borderland
, chapter=14
(obsolete) Hard, firm; obdurate.
Severe; violent; fierce (now usually in describing the weather).
* {{quote-magazine, title=The climate of Tibet: Pole-land
, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80
, magazine=(The Economist)
(rare) Strong; vigorous; powerful.
* Sir Walter Scott
* Beaumont and Fletcher
Stiff, rigid.
* Spenser
* Shakespeare
* Ben Jonson
Hard in appearance; barren, desolate.
Complete, absolute, full.
* Ben Jonson
* Collier
* Selden
starkly; entirely, absolutely
* Fuller
* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
, title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad
, chapter=4
As an adjective gaunt
is lean, angular and bony.As a proper noun stark is
.gaunt
English
Alternative forms
* (l) * (l) (Scotland)Adjective
(er)citation, passage=A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by.}}
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.}}
citation, passage=Behind me, rose up, to an extraordinary height, gaunt , black cliffs. }}
Synonyms
* scraggy, scrawny, skinnystark
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) stark, starc, from (etyl) stearc, . Related to (l). Modifying naked , an alternation of original .Adjective
(er)citation, passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest . It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
- a stark , moss-trooping Scot
- Stark beer, boy, stout and strong beer.
- Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark .
- Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff / Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies.
- The north is not so stark and cold.
- I picked my way forlornly through the stark , sharp rocks.
- I screamed in stark terror.
- A flower was growing, in stark contrast, out of the sidewalk.
- Consider the stark security / The common wealth is in now.
- He pronounces the citation stark nonsense.
- Rhetoric is very good or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.
Derived terms
* (l)Adverb
(-)- He's gone stark , staring mad.
- She was just standing there, stark naked.
- held him strangled in his arms till he was stark dead.
citation, passage=“… That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. …”}}
